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Xasthur, "Subliminal Genocide"
While I am less than enthused about a decidedly not black metal label releasing a huge black metal record, I am always welcome to Xasthur with open arms; slits wrists and all. But if you want to argue, Xasthur is really a tangled webbed structure weaving through the black metal schematic, more-so than a traditional artist of the genre. Yet while influenced heavily by the truest and blackest (Burzum, Beherit), the Xasthur demographic is much more than corpse-paint and battleaxes. Hot off the heels of the Twilight super-group project, and in the middle of label limbo, Subliminal Genocide expertly defines itself, clarity not withstanding, as the record compared to the bulk of Malefic’s material is decidedly clear, yet ever so demure in it’s soul-raping cacophony. I was pretty apprehensive at the thought of a sixteenth release in five years, but Malefic has delivered. The drowning drone of the end of “The Prison of Mirrors” has your chest caving in and your head swimming before the gloom and drain of “Beauty is Only Razor Deep” sets in, with sluggish tempo and arpeggios whisking back and forth before, wait; a melody creeps in and fuzzes things into utter obscurity. Subliminal Genocide is eleven more tracks of what Malefic has become and virtually creates another genre unto itself. The vocals (of which, have been all but non-existent on some releases) carry a constant howl of shrill, specter dissonance, and while all reeking of the same cenobites-on-pcp-writng-music-with-human-limbs disharmonic evolution going on, each track has a distinctly frank identity; other than each track culminating in one catatonic listening experience, things are very easy to decipher and much more interesting. A purely haunting, searing record comfortably subdued in it’s approach yet so violently torturous in it’s means.
Standout Tracks The Prison of Mirrors |
