Melechesh: Sphynx (2003)
When the third millennium was still young, I, like many death metal fans, was digging the combined intricate musicianship and ancient Egyptian scholarship of South Carolina’s Nile, which reminded us that humanity’s history was hardly confined to events within the modern Christian/Gregorian Calendar.
But I was even more obsessed with another band, formed much closer to the Cradles of Civilization (Jerusalem, to be precise), called Melechesh, which was churning out inventive black metal meshed with Middle Eastern and Mesopotamian music and myth.
2003’s intentionally misspelled Sphynx was the group’s third long-player in a decade of mostly underground existence, so most Westerners discovering Melechesh for the first time were likely surprised by the band’s astoundingly mature musicianship and songwriting vision.
Others were even more surprised to learn that drummer Proscriptor McGovern, of Dallas-based black metal institution, Absu, had lent his superhuman skills to inspired Melechesh creations, both dauntingly complex (“Incendium Between Mirage and Time”) and blindingly fast (“Annunaki's Golden Thrones”).
Make no mistake, though: Melechesh were still the mirror image of their namesake founder, vocalist, lead guitarist, keyboardist, songwriter, lyricist, etc., Melechesh Ashmedi, aided by longtime associate Moloch (guitars, percussion) and Al Hazred (bass, keyboards).
It was Ashmedi’s personal experiences and multi-cultural musical interests (even employing Persian and Egyptian instruments like the Saz, Daf, Riq and Darbukka) that helped exotic songs like “Tablets of Fate” and “Purifier of the Stars” forge an understanding between East and West like no peace treaty signed in our lifetime.
And, lyrically, it was Ashmedi’s liberal mix of fact and fiction, verifiable history and arcane mysticism, that fueled thematically complex and erudite (at times head-scratchingly so) standouts like “Secrets of Sumerian Sphynxology” and “Of Mercury and Mercury.”
Is there an echo in this ziggurat?
Anyway, after so much of this stimulating, unpredictable, adventurous black metal, the repetitive, album-closing, instrumental drag of “Caravans to Ur” (complete with long silence followed by a “secret” non-song at the end) sounds like the CD-padding exercise it no doubt was, but don’t let that sour you.
All these years later, I’d still rate Sphynx among Melechesh’s very best efforts, which means it was also one of the very best black metal efforts, by any band, to arrive at the dawn of this third millennium -- to us Westerners -- and eighth or ninth millennium for these proud descendants of Babylon.
More Melechesh: Djinn, Emissaries, The Epigenesis, Enki.
