#demonhood

Demon-hood

  D is for damned. Past actions have caused my soul's current state. You breaking me released the monster within.

 E is for effigy. I watched the portrait of the person I once was become engulfed in hellish black flames.

 M is for mockery and monstrosity. You taunted me and told that I was an ugly human. Now let me show you what a beautiful creature I've become.

 O is for opportunistic. You made a foolish mistake. One that I will most definitely use to win this fight.

 N is for nightmare. The dreams you have had of me have really come to life.

 H is for hell. Thanks to you, I can't enter the gates of heaven but once I'm done this will be a better fit.

 O is for opponent. I wasn't equal to you. Now that I'm different maybe I'm worth it.

 O is for overzealous. Your celebration of my broken soul and heart has made you too cocky.

 D is for disappointing, disgraceful and dying. Loving you was waste of my time and completely unacceptable. I feel no remorse as I watch the light leave your eyes.

wormlust [iceland] // ambient black metal.

Wormlust

The Feral Wisdom

June 6, 2013

Demonhood

7

Listen: Djöflasýra

     With the increased quality of American experimental black metal scene, the core values of the genre have started to expand from its rusty Nordic beginnings. Black metal isn't a genre that's easy to innovate but with a recent emphasis on atmosphere and ambiance that can actually work thanks to high recording qualities, the genre has become, for a lack of a better word, much more of a transcendental experience. Indeed, this year's best metal record feels more like a soaring ambient post-rock artifact rather than the familiar wet basement climax stuff, not to mention the confrontational pink cover. Well, Icelandic musician H.V. Lyngdal doesn't really care about any of that as his new record under the Wormlust moniker is a hi-fi throwback to black metal basics.

   The Feral Wisdom is a record which can only claim its place today thanks to the pristine recording quality. Otherwise Wormlust mixes several of the metal basics together to make something that sounds like a 90s record remastered for modern use. With lack of prominent riff melodies, The Feral Wisdom spends majority of its time bashing out atmosphere. The album combines traditional black metal and dark ambient and boils them to the point where the result feels psychedelic. While the instrumental part of the record holds up well from both metal and ambient point of view, it's the vocals that give the music their psychedelic aesthetic. Not only backed with reverb, the vocals feature a heavy delay effect which, if you listen closely, is the factor that fills the empty space most of the time.

   Not that The Feral Wisdom has much of emptiness in it. The ambiance here is made of droning guitars which, once again, aren't experimental simply because this is how original black metal would've sounded if the artists back then had access to respectable recording studios. For the most part The Feral Wisdom uses its ambiance as a drone. There aren't many passages or blanks to fill. Rather than go through motions to convey a sense of grandeur, Wormlust explores singular spaces. Djöflasýra is just about the only track here that truly feels like a journey, an expressive ambient soundscape bookended by solid metal workouts. The rest of the album is a bit more linear, either dealing in strictly metal or ambient without challenging their respective borders. The drone of the noise sometimes works against the ambient sound that the album is aiming for but considering that the record is only around 36 minutes and four tracks long, the lack of expansion and to the point sound of the ambiance can be forgiven.