AN NCS PREMIERE: ONE MASTER — “THE SECRET NAMES”

After six long years of lycanthropic reclusion, ONE MASTER are ready to unveil a new full-length recording: The Names of Power. Taking its title from the ancient occult idea that if one learns the true name of a deity, access to its power can be obtained, the theme of the album is on the power of language, with each song being focused on its use in a different context: religion, heresy, a cult, solitude, the universe, and modernity.

That’s how the promotional materials for The Names of Power begin introducing the new double-LP from this cult East Coast black metal band. They include more details that we’ll share with you, but for now we want to move right into the music, which is maybe even more fantastic than even die-hard fans of One Master might be expecting.

Of course our main focus today is the song we’re premiering, one that’s pitch black in its moods but highly contagious in its effects.

At more than 10 1/2 minutes “The Secret Names” is the second-longest track on this substantial album. It drags the listener in chains behind an abysmal march of massive corrosive chords, wailing leads, gut-busting drums, and subterranean bass tones, urged on by scalding screams.

The combined sensations of that dreadful, staggering progression are primal, hopeless, and cruel, but with a percussive explosion, the riffing begins to warp and writhe, and the vocals sound even more ruinously unhinged. Oppressiveness has led to searing agony.

The staggering cadence briefly slows even more, and the lead guitar seems to cry out in wrenching pain as the rhythm section continue to slug the body and that eerie, writhing and whining riff burrows deeper into the skull (somehow, something so harrowing and hopeless has become catchy).

The drums begin tumbling, gearing up for a surge that sounds like pumping pistons, driving the music to greater heights of unnerving intensity, and then the trudge returns. The blood-congealing guitar harmonies dig deeper and then slowly boil, creating a dense miasma of audio illness surrounding the rhythm section’s huge pulse and the cauterizing vocals.

Only after the song ends, listeners may realize that they’ve fallen into a trance, a terrible spell of unearthly origin, perversely crafted from chilling, occult guitar hooks and bone-deep grooves.

 

 

If you missed the first advance track from The Names of Power, we’re including that one as well. “The Forbidden Names” is shorter than “The Secret Names” (indeed, the album’s shortest song), and it brings forth different energies and moods. There, rocking grooves lead the way, and although the guitars again find a sweet spot between abrasion and chime-like clarity, this time their melody straddles an emotional line between brazen defiance and despair.

The song has a feral energy, which manifests in d-beats and ragged slashing chords. But be careful, this song is packed with hooks too, and that belly-deep bass exerts its big grip again. When the drums start riotously pumping and the guitars convulse, the screams go higher and a rapidly vibrating lead guitar spears out in a display of devilish glory.

One Master continue shifting the momentum and the riffs, but never letting the listener off their hooks. They build toward electrifying crescendos, but also work in moods of melancholy and misery, along with gritty snarls and possessed shrieks.

Well, it’s no wonder they picked that song as the lead single. It’s viscerally powerful, ingeniously dynamic, well-calculated to kick up your heart-rate, and damn… those hooks….

 

 

Now for those additional details we promised.

First, The Names of Power is more than 54 minutes long, spread across six substantial tracks, and it’s set for release on November 24th by Eternal Death.

Second, the album is the work of a lineup consisting of band founder Valder on guitar and vocals, long-running member Black Wolf on guitar and bass (who writes and plays all of the leads and solos), and drummer Eponymous (appearing on a One Master album for the first time). (Although he joined after the album was recorded, new bass player Grave Dog (having been long affiliated with the band, providing artwork since Reclusive Blasphemy) is part of the band’s lineup moving forward.)

Third, this is the band’s first recording at Sonic Environments with Jeff Weed (with mastering still provided by Will Killingsworth at Dead Air Studios), and as you’ve already figured out for yourselves, “crystal clear and bloody raw” is a pretty good approximation of that production.

Fourth, the release of The Names of Power is set to coincide with One Master‘s second performance at the Messe des Morts festival in Montreal, with a full East Coast/Midwest tour currently being organized by Ripping Headaches for Spring 2024.

And lastly, the album is available for pre-order now. Eternal Death is releasing it on CD, cassette tape, and limited-to-100 double-vinyl boxsets.

PRE-ORDER:
https://eternaldeath.bandcamp.com/album/the-names-of-power

ONE MASTER:
https://www.facebook.com/onemasterUSA