By: Conor
O’Dea
Album
Type: Full Length
Date
Released: 21/12/2018
Label: Van Records
It is dynamic, transporting, deeply mature and brilliantly executed. “Scythe of the Cosmic Chaos” easily
ranks among the top albums of 2018.
“The Scythe
of the Cosmic Chaos” CD//DD//2LP track listing:
1. Cult of Starry Wisdom
2. Yuggothian Spell
3. The Summoning of Nyarlathotep
4. Veneration of the Lunar Orb
5. Sinister Sea Sabbath
6. The Oneironaut - Haunting Visions Within the Starlit Chambers of Seven Gates
7. Lungs Into Gills
8. Thou Shalt Not Speak His Name (The Scythe of Cosmic Chaos)
2. Yuggothian Spell
3. The Summoning of Nyarlathotep
4. Veneration of the Lunar Orb
5. Sinister Sea Sabbath
6. The Oneironaut - Haunting Visions Within the Starlit Chambers of Seven Gates
7. Lungs Into Gills
8. Thou Shalt Not Speak His Name (The Scythe of Cosmic Chaos)
The
Review:
"... The walls melted
away, and I was swept by a black wind through gulfs of fathomless grey with the
needle-like pinnacles of unknown mountains miles below me. After a while there was
utter blackness, and then the light of myriad stars forming strange, alien
constellations."
- H.P. Lovecraft,
"The Book"
It is nearly impossible for me to relate how I came to be here, in this
state, near mad and plagued by nightmares. A fragment of the cosmos according
to Azathoth, a cthonic gospel in eight blasphemous hymns, has fallen into my
hands in the course of my pursuit of things hidden and forbidden, and I have
listened, listened to the void and have become damnedI am forced into this
account because other listeners may well refuse to follow my advice without
knowing why. Let me pray that, if I do not survive this review, that my editors
may put caution before audacity and see that this music greets no other ear
without an awareness of the perils embedded therein.
Sulphur Aeon are the primus inter pares of the extreme metal heralds that dare
to bring us tales of Lovecraft's disordered, nihilistic and meaningless
universe. “Sulphur Psalms” (2010) already bares the tell-tale
traces of the mental and emotional scars associated with too many encounters
with damned incanabula and unnameable entities, but as witnesses of
horrors as opposed to the evangelists of those same abominations.
“Deep Down They Sleep” (2012) is demonstrative of men who have immersed
themselves too long in knowledges best forgotten and a clear tidal mark of
having disturbed things best left asleep. It is in this two-track that we first
get a true sense of the esoteric conjurings and depth of atmosphere that the
band goes on to deepen in their future albums. There is a first warning of the
cavernous oceanic depths and bleak cosmic emptiness that marks the sonic
landscapes of both the excellent “Swallowed
by the Ocean's Tide” (2013) and the brilliant “Gateway to the Antisphere” (2015), which remains one of my
favourite metal albums of the last decade and one that I return to listen to
regularly. The band has consistently displayed an unerring capacity to
capitalize on their strengths in developing winding, hypnotic melodies and
absolutely entrancing atmosphere and ambience; there is little doubt you are in
the hands of the preachers of the cosmic chaos itself when you take the time to
sit and absorb this music. Each iteration brings new depth, new clarity to
their vision, and a renewed sense of awe, wonder and horror for the rapt
listener.
“Scythe of the Cosmic Chaos” opens with the eerie “Cult of Starry Wisdom”,
a haunting and ominous track that tells the story of the faithful coming to
pledge themselves to Great Old Ones and Outer Gods. There is a beautiful, Pink Floyd-reminiscent
segue at the end of this track that leads into the utterly furious “Yuggothian
Spell”, a menacing, swirling cyclone of unspeakable magics inspired by
Lovecraft's Whisperer in Darkness. The Crawling Chaos himself manifests in the “Summoning
of Nyarlathotep”, and evokes the sense of a seeker further imperiling both
his mortal soul and immortal mind in contacting this terrible being.
“Veneration
of the Lunar Orb”, likely a reference to Lovecraft and Barlow's superb The
Night Ocean brings us back to the edge of the fathomless sea beneath an
unspeaking moon. Sulphur
Aeon's sepulchral marine gospel continues as the children of Dagon
are referenced both in “Sinister Sea Sabbath” and “Lungs into Gills”,
a direct encomium to the infamous Shadow over Innsmouth. Shifting into the
strange, ethereal realms of Lovecraft's dream-cycle, The prog-inflected “Oneironaut”
moves us from the drowned into the dreamed, the multiversal space in which
things not dead may eternally lie. The final fury of closing (and title) track “Scythe
of the Cosmic Chaos” raises the spectre of the King in Yellow himself,
Hastur the Unspeakable, Lord of Carcosa. This is a dramatic and fitting close
to the powerful nightmare journey that this album embodies, with a clean vocal
ending that brings to mind the gothic baritone of Fields of the Nephilim's Carl McCoy.
“Scythe of the Cosmic Chaos” is not yet my favourite Sulphur Aeon album, but
it is their best. It is dynamic, transporting, deeply mature and
brilliantly executed. Profoundly holistic, greater than the sum of its
excellent parts, “Scythe of the Cosmic
Chaos” easily ranks among the top albums of 2018.
"And vast infinities
away, past the Gate of Deeper Slumber and the enchanted wood and the garden
lands and the Cerenerian Sea and the twilight reaches of Inganok, the crawling
chaos Nyarlathotep strode brooding into the onyx castle atop unknown Kadath in
the cold waste, and taunted insolently the mild gods of earth whom he had
snatched abruptly from their scented revels in the marvellous sunset city.
- H.P. Lovecraft,
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
“The Scythe of the Cosmic Chaos” is available HERE
