Deathspell Omega may be unique. These mysterious French philosopher-poets are not Norwegian teenagers playing at evil. There is some thought...some philosophy...some art here. I am a sucker for lyrics like this:
Everything, except God, has in itself some measure of privation,
Thus all individuals may be graded according to the degree
To which they are infected with mere potentiality”
Was there not an inconceivable loss of knowledge at Bethlehem?
Christ's abasement, His subjecting Himself to the laws of human birth
And growth and to the lowliness of fallen human nature...
Did the Son remain the transcendent Logos,
Is there not a radical and fatal discontinuity between the consciousness?
Of the transcendent Logos and the secular Jesus?
Obedience to the point of death,
Falling down through increasing
Pressure
Into the deathlike region
Of ooze and slime and decay
These are the fruits and symptoms of the abasement of the World,
The assumption of humanity and the simultaneous occultation of Divinity
Kenose (Kenosis in English) means the total emptying of one's self to the divine...or anti-divine in the case of Deathspell Omega!
The album starts out very quietly with a dark and heavy base drum line, scratches, and a mysterious piano? keyboard line that sets a quite ominous tone. The music very slowly builds...Deathspell Omega is never in a hurry, their music serves their theology or ideology and is not designed to be a quick listen. Mysterious, heavily breathed but quiet "un"clean vocals then read the text excerpted above...then everything crashes into heavyness as the cymbals hammer and the blast beats and black metal guitars suddenly come in. And...we are off.
There are only three tracks on this short EP...but you are still looking at over 30 minutes of challenging and diverse music.
Track II is heavy as fuck from the beginning, with an interesting and almost(almost!)catchy groove. VoKills interplay with bellowed, frightening declamations from an entity which I would not want to meet in a dark alley! Is Track II almost...catchy? The trademarkblack metal waterfall of drum beats and blast beats is amazing here...with that groove holding things together. This groove moves in amazing waves of energy...like a typhoon that is trying to wash away the listener.
Track III begins with black metal rage and goes on from there. Still...given this is Deathspell Omega, the bizarre change in pace and tone and instrumentation kicks in about 1/3 of the way through. Amzing use of keyboards...creepy, creepy keyboards.
Kenose may be my favorite Deathspell Omega disc...in its short length there is incredible diversity and song development. And..those amazing lyrics. I own the disc in an mp3 format but I will probably purchase the whole package eventually (the Chaining the Katechon EP is an awesome gatefold package with those amazing DSO lyrics readily at hand).
I keep listening to this stuff again and again...there is a degree of complexity and interest in THIS black metal that is simply insane.
Deathspell Omega is NOT a live band (they have emphatically rejected the idea of live performance as contrary to their religion). Still...YouTube is amazing and it's interesting to see what fans attach to DSO music.
9.5 sins out of 10. This is pretty classic, folks!
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