As you’re about to see in the lyric video we’re premiering, the scribe of the Athenian band Chthon is a talented story-teller, though the tale told in the title track to Chthon‘s new album Eremite is a narrative of supernatural horror. It recounts the experience of a ruined, one-eyed zealot offering himself before a basalt shrine to an unnamed terror from another dimension.
The music tracks the tale in a progression of sound that’s just as supernatural and frightening as the words. In its initial phases the song presents the physical and mental ruin of the eremite — famished, face scarred, fingers mangled, body afflicted by festering wounds, and his one remaining eye unnaturally dilated — and simultaneously creates a chilling occult atmosphere.
In those initial phases, slow isolated notes reverberate in their gloom through an ambient mist, and then the band proceed in a massive mid-paced stomp, with distorted guitars deepening the feeling of oppressive gloom. A wailing guitar melody begins to slither and sway, like the exotic strains of a snake-charmer, but the melody is disturbing — it channels illness and misery.
The words play out in monstrous growls as the music begins to build tension and anticipation. The giant bass heaves, the drums erupt in thunderous bursts, and those piercing guitar-leads rise in agony. The music as a whole begins to rise — toward heights of hideous grandeur.
And then we come to the point in the tale when the dweller in the shrine demands its sacrifice. There, the music catches fire, drums hammering, the riffage skittering, writhing, and violently stabbing, the vocals soaring into savage screams.
The protagonist removes his own tongue and gouges out his remaining eye. “Prepared for the occasion / he cast a spell of Sight / and finally bore witness / to the Madness of the Shrine”. And the music itself conveys that madness in exhilarating, though still frightening, fashion.
The video makes compelling use of the new album’s chilling cover art by Khaos Diktator Design, which well-suits Chthon‘s occult alchemy of black and death metal in which all of its members brought their varying influences together, aided on the new album by session drummer Vassilis Stavrianidis (Yoth Iria, Terrordome).
Eremite (the album) is now set for CD and digital release on May 20th by Death in Pieces Records in South and North America, and by Chaos and Hell Productions (the label of Kostas from the band Abyssus) in Europe.
Joined by N.K (Plague), Chthon is now recording new material for upcoming releases and is also looking to complete its lineup in order to perform its dark art live.
PRE-ORDER:
https://deathinpiecesrecs.bigcartel.com/product/chthon-eremite-cd-pre-order
CHAOS AND HELL PROD.:
https://chaoshellproductions.bigcartel.com/
https://chaosandhellprod.bandcamp.com/
CHTHON:
https://www.instagram.com/chthonband
https://www.facebook.com/chthonband
https://chthonband.bandcamp.com