...SIŁA I PIĘKNO MUZYKI TKWIĄ W JEJ RÓŻNORODNOŚCI...


By today's standards, we waited for the new Deathspell Omega album not so long, only three years (their previous seventh album "The Furnaces of Palingenesia" was released in 2019). Well, Deathspell Omega have changed. Once again. But although we are still able to recognize the "good old" Deathspell Omega style, they have changed dramatically. Firstly, they absolutely and irrevocably broke the thin line between avant-garde black metal and post black metal. Secondly, "The Long Defeat" is a melodic and tuneful work, and it is thanks to this circumstance that we are dealing with the opening of a new era in the band's history. However, the concept of "melodiousness" in reference to Deathspell Omega should not scare away, ah, such music can be used as a soundtrack for some movie that will be booed in Cannes for provocative scenes of sex and violence.

Awareness of metamorphosis does not come to the listener immediately because the album provocatively starts with a pattern proven by past experiments. Exactly this "fastidious melancholy" we have heard before, and more than once, for example, a short passage at the third minute on "Veritas Diaboli Manet in Aeternum: Chaining the Katechon" EP, also the "Kénôse" EP started in the same spirit. However, the same – full of tragicalness and fatality – introduction on "The Long Defeat" (here it is slow mildly distorted guitar picking) drags on, drags on, drags on and on, and we finally understand that this is not a preparatory intro at all, that there will be no – at least right now – blast beat wall accompanied by a tremolo-picked dissonant flurry, that this is, in fact, a composition in all its weird glory.

"Enantiodromia" (as well as subsequent songs in a greater or lesser degree) flows like a river, other small rivers and streams flow into it – in the sense that new sounds grow around the guitar picking, mini-bridges fit in, of course, dissonances appear, pinched harmonics too (in the last third of the song), sometimes the aural abnormalities make you suspect that it is already some free jazz, – but the guitar picking unwaveringly continues to flow. It is the basis of everything, it is both a framework and an anchor, it is the main element. Thanks to this structure, the river does not become a raging mountain stream (as before, on previous albums), it is a wide river, confidently carrying its waters forward through the lowland.

Deathspell Omega are still "therapy", but no longer "shock", rather "relaxation". Previously, when listening to Deathspell Omega, the listener wanted to have support under their feet, to have something to cling to. But there was nothing even close to being a tower of strength on previous albums. Now the listener feels like in a mother's womb, he is calm and comfortable. He is safe. Well, returning from our metaphors to black metal, we feel some kind of otherworldly threat in all these riffs of "The Long Defeat", but there is no aggression at all. We are not saying that all this is bad, we are just saying that everything is fundamentally different now.

There are no abrupt stops in the narration of Deathspell Omega now, not to mention impetuous schizophrenic tempo changings. The tempo changes are arranged very softly now, they can hardly be called sudden. And in comparison with the aforementioned "Veritas..." there are practically no dissonances on the new material – pay attention, in comparison with this particular recording. That is, there are dissonances on "The Long Defeat", how could it be without them, but... Well, you get the idea. Needless to say about the "ragged" riffs with a strong dissonance, while they were here literally just a moment ago, let's remember at least the tenth song "Absolutist Regeneration" on "The Furnaces of Palingenesia". No, for the new Deathspell Omega it's too harsh. If you prefer, "The Long Defeat" is their "Metallica" a.k.a. "The Black Album".

Speaking of the "guitar picking is a skeleton while everything else is flesh" structure, "Si Monvmentvm Reqvires, Circvmspice", Deathspell Omega's third album, a turning point in their discography, often comes to mind when listening to "The Long Defeat". The beginning of the second song "Eadem, Sed Aliter", which develops almost entirely according to the scenario of "Enantiodromia", is almost a spitting image of "First Prayer" or, even better, the fourth "Second Prayer", in the sense of using melancholic guitar picking (like a tired traveler looking for place to sleep) accompanied by unusual drumming. The melancholic episodes of the sixth "Hétoïmasia", as well as the finale of the tenth "Jvbilate Deo (O Be Joyfvl in the Lord)" and the beginning of the eleventh "Carnal Malefactor" on "Si Monvmentvm..." – all this, if the expression may be tolerated, is distant forerunner of the current material.

With only one clarification. Yes, the atmosphere of "The Long Defeat" is very reminiscent of "Si Monvmentvm...", although "Si Monvmentvm..." was harder to listen to and take for granted after all. Comparing "The Long Defeat" with "Si Monvmentvm..." works only in the sense of "softness": it's not "Veritas..." (for example) at all. Or rather, if "Si Monvmentvm..." is black metal, even if avant-garde, then "The Long Defeat" is already post black metal. That is why it is inappropriate to speak of a "return to the roots" (more precisely, to an earlier era).

The rejection of "returning to the roots" can be described in another way. It's not enough just to say that "loftiest apocalection", i. e. "gentle emotionality" was in the music of Deathspell Omega before, and there is just more of it now. No, not "just". Previously this "emotionality" was built almost on a logical principle, yes, exactly this way, because there was a certain logic in all that quasi-Chaos. Now "emotionality" has acquired a certain lyrical contrast, becoming almost feminine. That is why the elements of the traditional Deathspell Omega, when they begin to torment the listener with dissonant guitar playing and blast beat drumming, are now perceived almost as self-plagiarism. Right, the general canvas has changed, so not all old templates work as before.

In a similar vein, the sophisticated drum parts (on the verge of math metal), which enhanced the schizophrenic witchcraft of the guitars on "Paracletus" (just for example), seem to get stuck in the guitar part on "The Long Defeat" sometimes, and this is most clearly manifested on the blast beats. Perhaps this is just a consequence of the "transition period" (or "twilight zone"), the transition to what Deathspell Omega will become in the future.

Yes, we are sure that "The Long Defeat" is only the beginning of the transformation. Quasi-Chaos has a strong side effect, namely that it is easy to repeat oneself in it. The releases that followed "Paracletus" namely "Drought" EP, "The Synarchy of Molten Bones" and "The Furnaces of Palingenesia" contained some innovative experiments designed to dilute and vary the insane grandeur of "Paracletus", but they did not become revolutionary. Most likely, to continue further in the same spirit meant exclusively self-repetition if not self-plagiarism. And if you expected Deathspell Omega to move further – according to the algorithm from "Infernal Battles" to "Inquisitors of Satan" and then to "Si Monvmentvm..." and further and further, it is worth considering, does this "further" exist in terms of music? It is quite possible that further is only Pure Chaos, and Deathspell Omega preferred music to it.

This postulate is clearly manifested in the injection of guitar solos on "The Long Defeat". Of course, Deathspell Omega had solos before, but at best they were pretentiously melodic passages, that is, more unusual than beautiful. Unlike the first song, the second "Eadem, Sed Aliter" presents us a lot of solo sections, touches of heavy metal school are mixed in them with the manner of the late Abigor and the knows with what else. The title song "The Long Defeat" though not so rich in solos, but it actively supports the given direction. In the fourth "Sie Sind Gerichtet!" there are even fewer solo parts, but the final dazes us with a soft shimmering solo, hypnotizing with its fabulousness. For the former Deathspell Omega, such a solo was simply unthinkable. While the last "Our Life Is Your Death" contains no revelations in this sphere.

Even with all things considered, the issue of vocal parts was resolved on "The Long Defeat" in a fundamentally different way than the issue of guitar solos. It even can be said that they did the opposite with regard to vocals. Well, there was always a lot of vocals that "anchor" the Deathspell Omega songs, but on "The Long Defeat" they decided in addition to make the vocals more diverse by inviting several vocalists for the recording. So Arioch of Funeral Mist and M. of Mgła joined Aspa. Their voices are different, but due to the rasping grittiness common to all, there is no compilation effect on the album.

The problem is different: as the very first "Enantiodromia" already demonstrates, such harsh shrieking vocals turn out to be almost the only means that can give aggression to music. And this weapon comes into some transcendental conflict with the soft guitar melody, resulting in a feeling of parallelism between the vocal and guitar tracks (i. e., without their intersection). Perhaps it would be more appropriate to sing in many passages of "The Long Defeat" with a clear voice, as Aspa did in the finale of "Veritas...", but Deathspell Omega are still Deathspell Omega not to follow conventional patterns. And then, with yammer and moaning, they would most likely become exactly like Shining, standing on the verge of depressive black metal. Maybe, maybe in the future the approach to the vocal part will change, but for now we have such an oxymoron.

The other good news is that despite their melancholy, doomness and yearning, Deathspell Omega kept themselves from sliding down into that genre (i. e. depressive black metal). So if they still perform black metal, then it is black metal, and not depressive black metal at all. Well, if black metal on this album is depicted in the form of a graph, then it will rise for quite a long time, and then fall sharply down. Aha, the first "Enantiodromia" can be ignored. Although the second "Eadem, Sed Aliter" follows the same structure, it reaches a "black metal-ish" height anyway. In its turn, the third "The Long Defeat", starting with a piercing tremolo melody, is much more reminiscent of the "good old" Deathspell Omega, and as it progresses it becomes the most "black metal-ish" song on the album. But the most expressive song on "The Long Defeat" is not the title one at all, but "Sie Sind Gerichtet!" So much so that there is a feeling that the album "unwinds" only to the fourth song. The true Deathspell Omega with a lot of melodies and incomprehensible unearthly attitude falls on the listener, you no longer follow the process, just drown in a sea of sounds, and somewhere in its middle this song reaches its apogee (by the way, if you take the scale of the duration of the album, then this apogee falls on the "golden section"). But wait, there is more: "Sie Sind Gerichtet!" ends almost in the spirit of the finale of "Paracletus", yes, neither more nor less than that ecstatic vortex. While the last "Our Life Is Your Death" cancels out all the achievements of the previous song: starting with a post black metal-ish medley, it ends with the post-rock attitude. Melodic post-rock.

Summary. Compared to previous works, "The Long Defeat" is by no means a crazy and aggressive black metal pandemonium, it's an almost pure post black metal installation. You have to be a diehard Deathspell Omega fan, a post black metal lover or even a hipster to fall in love with this album after the first listen. The heart of an orthodox black metaller does not immediately respond to the "first emanation of the third era." This music works if you approach it in the right frame of mind. Well, listen to "The Long Defeat" a few times, the album is really enchanting and mesmerizing. Even its "post" kernel. First of all it's music.

Colonel Para Bellum


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUK3ym2Wk9M


1. Enantiodromia 11:57
2. Eadem, sed aliter 9:08
3. The Long Defeat 8:35
4. Sie sind gerichtet! 7:18
5. Our Life is Your Death 7:15


Mikko Aspa - Vocals
Khaos - Bass
Hasjarl - Guitars


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqFtcyt0NzI

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