By: Daniel Jackson
Album Type:
Full Length
Date Released:
22/09/2017
Label:
Napalm Records
‘Deep Calleth Upon Deep’ is something of a
spiritual successor to ‘Rebel Extravaganza’ in that the goal appears to have
been to take an established sound and create the weirdest, artsiest version of
it they could and there is evidence of a sweeping creative resurgence throughout
the album as a whole.
‘Deep Calleth Upon Deep’ CD//DD//LP track
listing:
1. Midnight Serpent
2. Blood Cracks Open The Ground
3. To Your Brethren In The Dark
4. Deep Calleth Upon Deep
5. The Ghost Of Rome
6. Dissonant
7. Black Wings And Withering Gloom
8. Burial Rite
The Review:
For most of you reading this; Satyricon requires no introduction. The band was among the
most popular in Norwegian black metal dating back to the mid 90s. Opinions, as
is often the case, vary as to where the band peaked creatively. For some, it’s
their second wave black metal period from ‘Dark
Medieval Times’ through “Nemesis
Divina”. Others prefer the forward-thinking mania of ‘Rebel Extravaganza’ or the stripped down black n’ roll approach
of the last 15 years.
For the purposes of this review,
it’s worth pointing out that I believe their creative apex to be the period
from ‘Dark Medieval Times’ through ‘Rebel Extravaganza’, with ‘Volcano’ being hit and miss, and
everything since then being thoroughly middle of the road; accessible at the
cost of any idea that might be exciting or interesting. While the band have
never made a bad album, they’ve settled for “fine” for three straight albums,
to the point that even the band themselves acknowledge that a change of
direction was desperately needed. In the press materials for ‘Deep Calleth Upon Deep’, Satyr spoke to the need for the band to
move on:
"Approaching
this release, what I always kept in mind is that either this is the beginning
of something new or it's gonna be my last record. If this is going to be the
last, then it needs to be something special.”
If nothing else, it’s fair to say
that this mindset has resulted in the band’s first truly exciting album in the
last fifteen years. Contextually, ‘Deep
Calleth Upon Deep’ is something of a spiritual successor to ‘Rebel Extravaganza’ in that the goal
appears to have been to take an established sound and create the weirdest,
artsiest version of it they could. “Rebel
Extravaganza” mutated and distorted 2nd wave black metal into something
wild and wholly unique. Here, Satyricon twists the
much more plain style of the last decade-plus into a truly engaging black n’
roll freakout. In fact, calling ‘Deep
Calleth Upon Deep’ “black n’ roll” feels like selling it short. While I may
not have found the last several Satyricon albums all
that interesting, they’d still cultivated their own unique sound, and each
album was immediately identifiable as Satyricon. That identity remains intact here, despite
forgoing the tropes and formula they’ve settled into over the years.
A sweeping creative resurgence is
evident all throughout the album. Album opener “Midnight Serpent” runs a gauntlet of ideas, ranging from the
conservatively black metal opening moments to the sprawling dissonant
atmosphere of the song’s 2nd half. “The
Ghost of Rome” is about as close as a black metal band has ever come to
crafting their own version of late 60s psychedelic pop, or more recently, Queens of the Stone Age's “Another Love Song”.
The point is; it’s more evident than
ever that Satyricon will never truly journey back to a
conventional black metal sound. Waiting for bands to tap into whatever your
perceived peak era for them might be is a recipe for disappointment. Some bands
manage to pull it off, but they’re the exceptions. In Satyricon’s
case, they’ve finally arrived at a new sound that’s as well-worth exploring as
their early glory years. Progress for a band is a good thing, when it works.
The road to this point wasn’t a smooth one, but they’ve gotten to where they
need to be. They’re very different from the band we knew 20 years ago, but
they’re every bit as interesting as they were back then.
Band info: Facebook
