AN NCS PREMIERE: VEILBURNER: “AGONY ON REPEAT”

 

Transcending Obscurity Records has been spreading around premieres from the new album by Veilburner in the run-up to its December 28 release, having already deployed three tracks through Toilet Ov Hell, Invisible Oranges, and Heavy Blog Is Heavy. We have yet another one for you today, and even though we come at the end of the line, there’s still a chance that some of you haven’t yet been exposed to the mind-altering effects of this Pennsylvania duo’s latest display of sonic alchemy. If so, now’s your chance.

And by the way, those aren’t empty words — this new album, A Sire To The Ghouls Of Lunacy, really is a thoroughly bewildering yet completely enthralling experience, an experimental rendering of black/death metal that’s not quite like anything else you’ve probably come across this year, and not one you’ll soon forget. It sends shivers down the spine, sets off fireworks behind the eyes, and spins the mind like a flaming top on the verge of careening into smithereens or taking flight like a rocket.

 

 

The album as a whole is just as much a morphing and mutilating trip as each song is unto itself, but the band’s explanation of the album as a whole seems particularly apt as an introduction to the one specific track we’re presenting today, and so we’ll begin with their own words:

“A Sire To The Ghouls Of Lunacy is the first album of a planned dualogy of companion works. Overlaying a musical narrative of serpentine twists and turns is a story told through the eyes and mind of a man tormented by visions and voices of strange entities, who struggles with the question of whether they are a real presence or a product of illness and the mentally deteriorating effects of his growing isolation.

“Being disfigured from porphyria, he finds himself alone in the world and forced to deal with this growing intrusion into his already difficult existence, pondering whether he is slowly losing his mind in addition to his body, or whether he has been targeted for a role in some otherworldly plot which he does not understand, but which is driving him to the brink.”

With those words in mind, on we go into “Agony On Repeat“:

 

Shards of eerie, twisted, dissonant frequencies go off like bizarre fanfares over a pummeling drum attack. A steady, head-hooking beat undergirds a cacophony of macabre growls, howls, and shrieks as the guitarist continues to generate continually mutating, brain-twisting filaments of sound — writhing, buzzing, and wailing. The drum rhythms themselves veer into unpredictable and off-kilter patterns, further threatening the listener’s mental stability. The music soars like rays of a rising sun, but just as quickly cavorts like fire elementals that have lost their minds, or warbles like hungry predatory birds.

It truly is a mystifying yet mesmerizing piece of music, and one of the most surprising aspects of this persistently unpredictable track is how well all the freakishly moving parts hold together. The perception of structure within this seemingly mad maelstrom emerges even as you listen, but becomes even more apparent as the music replays itself in your head, unbidden, even as silence falls at the song’s end.

And as a final thought, one further aspect of the song also proves to be fascinating: For such a perilous, subversive, and vicious musical excursion, there is an abundant exuberance in the composition and the performance that proves to be highly communicable.

 

 

Transcending Obscurity recommends this new album for fans of Deathspell Omega, Behemoth, Gaerea, Mgla, Schammasch, Blasphemy, and Mitochondrion. It is the work of multi-instrumentalist and backing vocalist Mephisto Deleterio and vocalist/visual-artist Chrisom Infernium. It’s being released in a variety of formats, which you can explore via the first link below.

And because we’re so thoughtful, we’re providing a Bandcamp stream of those three previously released tracks in addition to the fourth one we’re presenting today. Be sure to listen to them too!

PRE-ORDER:
https://veilburner.bandcamp.com/album/a-sire-to-the-ghouls-of-lunacy-experimental-black-death-metal

VEILBURNER:
https://www.facebook.com/veilburner/

TRANSCENDING OBSCURITY:
http://tometal.com/
https://www.facebook.com/transcendingobscurityrecords/