The Norway-based duo Hammerfilosofi came together in the plague year of 2020 with the goal of creating primeval black metal that would represent a “cleansing fire that aims to eradicate every trace of the civilized, the harmless, and the mediocre”, and to function as “an instrument to initiate a violent cathartic inner journey – and a celebration of strength and vigor, of terror and strife, and of glorious death.”
The results of their dark and imperious endeavors are captured in a debut album entitled The Desolate One, which is set for an imminent release on September 22nd by ATMF. Did the band achieve their goals? You’ll be able to answer that question for yourselves through the music player below, which provides all six tracks and nearly 45 minutes of sound.
Of course, we have our own answers.
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In short, the music sounds every bit as fanatical, fiery, and frightening as the band’s mission statement portends, but it also channels the doomed agony of the lesser souls the band seek to vanquish, and a harrowing esoteric process of liberation and elevation.
Much of this becomes clear through “The Sickle“, the first single from the album, which prompted immediate impressionistic reactions here at our site, repeated below:
You’ll know whose sickle it is from listening to it. After an exceedingly strange collage of sounds in the opening, the music proceeds in a beleaguered, pounding stomp, saturated with a dense miasma of abrasive riffage that sounds diseased and dismal.
Wild and wretched cries soar from a throat seemingly choked with blood. The riffing becomes increasingly convulsive, but also moans and screams, cruelly scouring the senses above the heavy, steady thump.
Tortured voices rave, their minds seemingly being broiled by what the guitars are doing when the march briefly pauses. The song becomes a roiling lake of doomed souls, madly churning poisonous waters in a futile effort to reach a shore too far away.
Solemn chants and madly flickering tones can also be heard, adding to the song’s unnervingly ceremonial aspects, and what an appalling ceremony it is. It all seems to proclaim: This is death’s endless domain, and you shall worship it.
Have no fear, I’m not going to spill out that many words about each of the other five tracks, but will just offer a few further notes, just in case you need some further encouragement to give yourselves over to the complete album stream.
Unquestionably, Hammerfilosofi are quite capable of manifesting sounds of hateful domination, deploying ruthless fracturing stomps, industrialized hammering, double-bass thunder, and blasting belligerence, as well as unhinged screams, fanatical cries, and startling vibrato singing, coupled with abrasive writhing chords, and feverish lead-guitar convulsions.
But as suggested earlier, they bring in other ingredients — a multitude of them. These include unexpected and eerie electronics; heaving minor-key waves of desolate and oppressive melody; bitter tremolo’d riffs that channel both cruelty and devastation; stalking death-march beats; and something like the delirium of distraught angels.
The sound of these sensations is sometimes tonally clear (at times the notes ring almost like bells), but more often they’re as rough and rude as sandstorm vortices. The amalgams are almost relentlessly dense, distorted, and devastating, but breaks occur when isolated notes or electronic pulses ring out, and the visceral pounding of the percussion always thrives.
There’s also no suppressing the vocals, which are always pitched at near-berserk levels of zealotry, albeit in different spine-tingling ways. You’ll be hard-pressed to find vocals on any other album this year that sound this authentically possessed.
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One big surprise arrives at the outset of “Abyssal Season“, one that I won’t spoil, but after that surprising and engaging start the song becomes one of the most ruthless and ruinous experiences on the album. As it happens, it’s also my favorite, with the long closing song “The Skull” a close second.
In recommending the album ATMF makes references to “the industrial infected Black Metal of bands like Mysticum or latest Craft, still painted pitch black like early Mayhem and Darkthrone.” At times, the music of Kriegsmaschine also popped into this writer’s head.
What you won’t find across these near-45 minutes are any pronounced hints of hope. The music descends into emotionally crushing depths of oppressiveness and despair, or boils over into scathing and sadistic sonic typhoons, or pounds away like a massive die stamp leaving its imprint on the rubble it has made of civilization. It also reaches heights of terrible grandeur.
No, not hopeful, but thoroughly gripping and fiendishly fascinating from start to finish. Now you can find your own answer to the question with which we began:
The label will release The Desolate One on a 6-panel digipak format on September 22nd, and later on in November on a Gatefold LP edition, with a limited press to 300 copies, of which 100 will be in bone color. It will also be available as a digital download, as well as on major streaming services.
PRE-ORDER:
https://metalodyssey.8merch.com/
https://atmfsssdtp.bandcamp.com/album/the-desolate-one
HAMMERFILOSOFI:
https://www.facebook.com/hammerfilosofi