ALBUM REVIEW: AORATOS, "Gods Without Name"

By: Mark Ambrose

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 22/03/2019

Label: Debemur Morti Productions

“Gods Without Name” CD//DD//LP track listing

1). Parallax I

2). Holy Mother of Terror

3). Of Harvest, Scythe and Sickle Moon

4). Gods Without Name

5). Thresher

6). The Watcher on the Threshold

7). Prayer of Abjection

8). Dread Spirit of the Place

9). Parallax II

The Review:

There must be other US black metal artists out there delivering atmospheric, occult, disturbing hymns to elder gods.  But between Akhlys, Nightbringer, and now AORATOS, one-man powerhouse Naas Alcameth (aka Kyle Spanswick) has seemingly cornered the market on truly grim, pitch black metal.  Naas is one of the most prolific one-man powerhouses in black metal, which (SoundCloud rappers notwithstanding) may be the most dominant “solo” genre of the moment.  You’d be forgiven for assuming so much output from one songwriter would be indistinguishable or, at worst, repetitive, but his latest work as AORATOS should shut up any naysayers: Naas Alcameth has a seemingly boundless well of interesting and diverse offerings to the darkness.

As a thematic departure from his prior work, AORATOS seems less focused on the introspective dreamscapes of Akhlys or the arcane magickal workings of Nightbringer. Instead, AORATOS is an earthier turn to primordial worship.  The “group’s” promotional images feature two hooded, robed figures lurking near a dilapidated farmhouse, one holding an old-fashioned pitchfork.  But this isn’t some hokey devilry – this feels like some cult roots, some ancient hearth magic. 

Naas’s lyrics on “Of Harvest, Scythe, and Sickle Moon” paint a picture of medieval peasant life supplemented by rootsy paganism: “I’ve ripped my hair and torn my skin / to get my master’s harvest in / I’ve reeved all flesh for the mighty dead / and blooded the field neath the moon of red.” There’s an unrelenting drive towards some high-minded ancient ancestry in a lot of black metal (often towards elitism or, in some sinister circumstances, racial purity). This feels like a raw and honest departure – few of us were descended from pseudo-elven kings and warriors, but our low forbears may have enjoyed a dark communion without even being able to read.  In “Gods Without Name”, Naas invokes spirits that carried weight for generations without the burden of holy scriptures or grimoires: “God of the attic, cellar and wheel. God of the shed, abbatoir and mill. God of the edge, grotto and grove. Dark gods of the plot to whom I’m betrothed.”

Naas himself handles all the instrumental duties (guitars and synth), as well as lead vocals, while Nox Corvus (main man of ANOTHER solo black metal project, Serpent of the Black Forest) offers some guitar work and backing vocals.  Menthor, drummer of Nightbringer, Necrosadist, and others, is the standard type of black metal powerhouse you need on an album so expansive sounding. 

Naas has layers upon layers of instrumentation and vocals, creating a chorus of tortured but distinguishable shrieks and howls.  The guitars vary between shimmering but almost out-of-tune picking (which is way more unsettling than my description would make it seem), massive chords, and tremolo picking that will make the hairs on your neck stand up.  Menthor’s precise double kick work and blast beats is invigorating, while the sparse, doomy crashes of “Dead Spirit of the Place” punctuates the nightmarish, nearly ambient closer before launching into full on black metal assault: one assumes Frost would be proud, and don’t get me wrong, this is still remarkably evil sounding.  

Naas isn’t writing an anthropological dissertation – he’s subverting the expectations of what themes carry black metal.  It’s smart but the plain descriptions of superstitions and homespun occult practice are sincere and totally unpretentious.  There’s something undeniably chilling when Naas howls “I am the thresher ‘neath the moon’s baleful eye! I am the thresher, the wolf in the rye!”  If this is the worship music of the hearth magician, consider me converted.

“Gods Without Name” is available HERE

Band info: bandcamp

Akhlys - ‘The Dreaming I’ (Album Review)

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 20/04/2015 (digital), 

12/06/2015 (physical)

Label: Debemur Morti Productions

‘The Dreaming I’ CD//LP//DD track listing:

1. Breath and Levitation

2. Tides of Oneiric Darkness

3. Consummation

4. The Dreaming Eye

5. Into the Indigo Abyss

Akhlys is:

Naas Alcameth | Vocals, Keyboards, Bass, Guitars, Sound effects

Ain | Drums

Review:

Naas Alcameth has been mightly busy over the last year or so, with Nightbringer having just released a new album late last year and now returning with Akhlys’ second album ‘The Dreaming I’ just this year. The natural inclination, since both projects involve Naas Alcameth as both songwriter and guitarist/vocalist, is to use the two albums as points of comparison. In this interview on the Debemur Morti website, Alcameth sheds a bit of light on the conceptual and musical differences, but it’s worth exploring a bit more in depth.

Where Nightbringer is more straightforward and vicious, similar to an even darker Dark Funeral or ‘Hell Eternal’ era Setherial, Akhlys uses more ambient noise, and musically falls into a more eerie, atmospheric style that is less easy to compare to others. The rhythm guitars tend to drone, serving as a deeper bedrock from which the lead guitars can dictate the finer emotional tone, as difficult as it can be to determine exactly what emotional reaction it brings out as you’re listening.  Meanwhile, the drums are generally content to alternate between relentless blasting, thrash beats or more conservative snare and cymbal patterns struck atop a wall of impenetrable double kick, a suitably raucous backbone for an album likely to pull such deep emotional reactions from the listener.

The strange, surrealist disposition of the album seems to be directly linked to the album's concept, built around a number of Naas Alcameth’s particularly bizarre dreams. With the music sounding so alien, to the point where the humanity evident even in the majority of black metal albums is stripped away completely, ‘The Dreaming I’ feels more like a sonic web woven by the worst recesses of the subconscious, rather than something a human being concocted while of sound mind. If that reads like a criticism of the album to you, it isn’t. The vocals are harrowing as they’re hissed and howled without the thinnest trace of either human warmth or pain. The drums, guitars and keyboards are maelstrom, subsiding only long enough to make you nervous about what the next storm has in store.

If that all reads a bit too much like I’m writing a press release for the album rather than reviewing it, I’m sorry, but it was either this or write a review that just says “It’s fucking fantastic.” and then turn it in. I’m sure other writers have found ways to describe this album without resorting to hyperbole or being excessively dramatic, but try as I have, I’m just not capable. It’s too all-consuming while I listen to it, and too exciting when having the presence of mind to try and analyze it. What’s surprising in retrospect is that the album didn’t always feel that way to me upon my initial, more cursory listens. It took allowing myself to get lost in the album to truly appreciate it as much as I do.

This is an album that warrants your exclusive attention when it’s on, otherwise you’re cheating yourself. It’s the kind of clandestine mindfuck that catches you after numerous listens, softening your brain into thinking it’s less uniquely affecting than it really is before it decides to completely change the complexion of your day. That’s something few albums can accomplish, once you’ve heard a large and varied portion of what the genre has to offer.

Words by: Daniel Jackson

You can pick up a digital copy here and a CD/LP copy here. 

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