There is a world of the imagination in which the clock of the seasons has frozen and moves no longer, in which the freezing dark of winter is endless. Technology works no longer, and decay is the order of the day. What human life remains is now huddled around fires, and beyond those shrouds of light terrible predatory things wait in the endless night, inhuman and ascendant.
It is a world of dream, a nightmare for huddled humans but a hideous glory for the dreamer, if the dreamer were something like the horrid ruler of the Outer Gods. The imagining of such blood-freezing dreams may have spawned the name chosen by the project whose music we’re premiering today — which is indeed Azathoth’s Dream.
Other nightmare dreams of endless night may explain the title of the project’s debut album — Nocturnal Vampyric Bewitchment. But regardless, that title is well chosen because the music is all of those things — deeply nocturnal and viciously vampyric, and yes, also frighteningly bewitching.
“The Moor” is the name of the song we’re now presenting. In it, guitars slowly ring and moan, casting a dismal pall on the mind as they do, finding an intersection of abrasion and clarity. Horrific screams pierce the senses, and the caustic second guitar begins to roil until its fevers become dominant.
The drums hammer, the raw and ravishing guitars attack in vicious frenzies, the lacerating screams reach a fever pitch of malignant derangement. The other guitar rises and frantically swirls, indeed supernaturally bewitching but also distressing.
The song doesn’t last long, but long enough to send shivers down the spine.
This writer isn’t very good at making comparisons, but the publicist for Iron Bonehead Productions, which will release this album on December 8th, is much more adept. He writes:
AZATHOTH’S DREAM are a brand-new entity hailing from the United States. On one hand, the one-man band’s sound is undeniably late ’90s French vintage, maintaining a similarly necrotic-yet-aristocratic mysticism not unlike Osculum Infame, Bekhira, Winter Funeral, and very early Seth.
On the other, one could liken AZATHOTH’S DREAM to the uprising of raw vampiric black metal in the U.S., spearheaded by Sanguine Relic, Vampirska, early Lamp of Murmuur, and Geist of Ouachita among others.
Iron Bonehead will release the album on vinyl LP format. As usual, there will be no pre-orders, but you’ll find ordering opportunities on the appointed date via the first link below.
Also below you’ll find a stream of the first single from the album, “A Millennia Perished“, which is even more terrifyingly glorious than “The Moor“, delivering guitar harmonies that as they cycle over and over again create visions of ancient melancholy majesty around vocals almost too painful to endure. Once again, bewitching, even elegant in its haunting, but this time a very intense musical spell that hammers the pulse even as it spins the mind and damages the heart.
IRON BONEHEAD:
https://www.ironbonehead.de
https://ironboneheadproductions.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/ironboneheadproductions