By: Mark Ambrose
Album Type: Full Length
Date
Released:
08/01/2018
Label: Fallen Empire
Records
Each member is so proficient, so
confident, and so merciless in their drive to push beyond limits that “Without
Veil, Nor Self” stands apart as a truly uncanny, terrifying listen.
“Without Veil, Nor Self” CD//CS//CD//LP track listing
1.
Desolation Lyre
2.
Sol Genesis
3.
Sol Knell
4.
Without Veil, Nor Self
5.
Lethean Throat
6.
Pall
The Review:
Whenever
listening to high quality black metal, I keep returning to the classic idea of
confrontations with the uncanny: if human beings are presented with something
beyond reckoning, they will react with abject terror or sublime
astonishment. While any genre can be
loaded with garbage, the glut of mid-tier metal can be disheartening. And yet I’m consistently confronted by
sublime, terrifying new material by masters like Entheogen, who epitomize the
uncanny on their debut LP, “Without Veil,
Nor Self”. While the album largely
treads in the terrifying, the prowess and ferocity of each member is truly
remarkable.
Jack
Blackburn’s drumming is, even by black metal standards, mind bending. The speed and complexity throughout “Without Veil…” is almost
incomprehensible, and made my jaw drop more than once, staring at my speakers
like they were producing something outside my reckoning of time and space. On the relatively short “Sol Knell”, Blackburn hammers
ferocious double bass blasts that hammers like Gatling gun fire. Steven Blackburn constructs a symphony of
dissonant, layered rhythm guitar, then allows haunting, shimmering leads to
glide over the chaos. Bassist Tiffin cements the whole
monstrous endeavor with simple but palpable low end. On the title track, the gut churning heft of
the bass, coupled with Jack’s inhuman drumming and Steven’s chiming, agonized
guitars, coalesces until you feel adrift in a churning maelstrom, clinging
desperately to life while sinking inexorably towards doom.
Vocalist
Alex Poole inhabits a variety of personas on “Without Veil…”, though all of them seem driven by agony, or about
to inflict some brutal violence. Whether
a dry, low, ghostly howl like in “Desolation
Lyre”, the grim, even intonations of “Sol
Knell”, or the piercing, haunted shriek of “Lethean Throat”, each delivery feels intentional. This consistent element of defying expectation,
of allowing beauty to shine through and be instantly eclipsed by brutal
pounding mayhem that is what is so exciting about Entheogen. Each member is so proficient, so confident,
and so merciless in their drive to push beyond limits that “Without Veil, Nor Self” stands apart as a truly uncanny,
terrifying listen.
“Without Veil, Nor Self” is available here
