IMPERATUS: “AT THE MERCY OF THE WIND”

Apr 242024

(Our Hanoi-based contributor Vizzah Harri wrote the following extensive and extremely enthusiastic review of the debut album from the Vietnamese black metal band Imperatus, which was released last month. This will be followed in the near future by a two-part interview.)

Imperatus means Order or Command (‘imperiously’ comes from the Latin word imperare, which means “to command.” Other words from this same root include empire, emperor, imperial, and imperative.) In order to kick off this faux-imperious review of a band that I believe will command your attention to the max, one might be allowed to err on the side of believing that this could be the jumpstart to a new empirical anomaly not to be fucked with. Emperor’s debut has always been slated as one of the top first albums ever released and they are mentioned for a reason (aural affinity). Just like Imperatus giving recognition to a sound reminiscent of their childhood, it is this listener’s conviction that the riffs found in this here disc be epically imperial.

There have been stunning debuts in 2nd wave devotion of the black arts and even though one can bemoan that which once was, no-one is really allowed to; seeing as if one had to look up riffs most often paid deference to, nearly drowned out in drums yet coming into purview so clearly is That riff from Det Som en Gang Var from Hvis Lyset Tar Oss. Comparisons you see, can be drawn to many a debut, yet theirs wasn’t one of them; he was already an accomplished musician when his solo project’s eponymous first album dropped.

Debut comes from the French débuter which means to ‘lead off’. I am not a linguist, numbers and words just fascinate me, have since I was forced out of illiteracy in pre-school. You see, I had way more fun in art class smudging things about and cheating at boardgames. Learn how to write my own name? bah, what the fuck is that nonsense all about? Back to the topic at hand.

In a year that will be inundated with new sounds from those killers of gods that breathed their first blasty breath 34 years ago – a band whose new cover art seems like direct homage, which in effect is actually also the most direct use of the word in symbolism (the original use of ‘homage’ denoted the ceremony by which a vassal declared himself to be his lord’s ‘man’), so if Deicide’s 13th album is a throwback and turning of the hat towards their beginnings: the cover art of their latest will have taken cues straight from their debut.

Imperatus are not vassals to death, instead going for a sound that is familiar, but more in the sense of having taken an acid bath and having left out that which is on the side of night naught but a sadistic exhumation of a dismembered testament to violence. You might be wondering whether what is referred to here is a black metal album or one that worships at the altar of death or thrash? The only thing that could have made the previous sentence more overt a reference towards stellar debuts of yore is to have bogged it down in my usual unsubtle use of heavy-handed links.

Being the pattern-seeking animals that we are, employing pareidolia (Pareidolia originates from Greek and is the combination of ‘para’ [beside/beyond] and ‘eidos’ [images/appearance] which informs the human visual system’s tendency to extricate patterns from… noise) all the time – look, it is a stretch, but bear with me – as a creature of said pattern recognition just like us all on this eucalyptus-deprived terraforma, I slapped a few loose but verifiably welded chains around some supposedly unrelated objects.

Us being the musical equivalent of koalas in the realm of nutrition, the only food we consume being so resource-heavy that once the digital age of mass consumption, diversification and apparent transparency arrived: we don’t know where to look for that damned fresh new leaf that just matured the other day. There’s a lot of replication out there you see. We think we know how to spot eucalyptus leaves amongst the detritus of the detriment of desuetude. And being koalas, and not having evolved much more than the thinnest membrane of outer layer brain at the risk of sounding speciesist, we just recognize the blue gum mate.

And that’s all we want to recognize, for gardam is the norm here, and that’s not just to badly transliterate an alien to US-ian shores’ idea of how indigenes would pronounce ‘deities be damned’. That’d be a reintegrationist norm of a third-person plural present indicative of the Galician ‘to save’. We traverse back to the golden shores of the heretofore. And yeah, integrating that what exists is as inevitable as it is unavoidable.

Another band that springs to mind of late for having referenced themselves is that of Jøtnarr. Their stunning debut EP Burn and Bury contained an opening track that still has people recovering from its anti-anti-breakdown of all motherfucking breakdowns (it’s a progression and lesson in tension that deserves a thesis). Don’t believe me, listen to Rise by Sin in full. Give yourself a minute to recover, then hit Retching from their latest EP Rotten Fucking Planet, skip to about 28 seconds in, and allow the progression that has slight hints in the bridge just after to also seep in. Hit Shiteater 54 seconds in next, tell me I’m right.

Why the reference? Immortal music has a pull even on its creator. At the mercy of the wind may be in its infancy as far as timeless breakdowns are concerned, though Imperatus is harkening back yet leading up-front with their sonic statement and also gracefully, subliminally, and yet overly hitting that message of: it’s the notes between; well, these imprimatur magi are commanding us to listen from the first metallurgic tones resonating through our earholes. And I do not make allusions lightly.

Calm Before the Storm

I may have forgotten how many times this album has been on my playlist, thirteen has a nice ring to it and other than being listed 34 times as an album title, the mighty Sabbath being one of them, my mom was also the 13th child, fun fact. I’m gonna listen to it quite a few times more because of reasons made known below. (And no, I only realized on the 337th edit that it is also Deicide’s 13th album in their 34th year, perhaps they are numerologists, or happy coincidence?)

Tired of references? At The Mercy Of The Wind kicks off with a really decent symphonic bass background with an acoustic prelude. It doesn’t linger too long and delivers to us the message that yes, diversity of sound is a thing for this band, also yes, going by that cover art and their imposing logo: we’re in for some riffs yo.

On first listen one might notice some similarities to their previous project in some of the keyboard melodies throughout the album. Last one… High on Fire is another budding project that came out with a lead single off their latest album Cometh the Storm called Burning Down that sounds an awful lot like the opening track off their debut, Baghdad. Just that opening. Bands reference themselves all the time, it’s called a signature style.

What Imperatus is doing here is requisitioning in effect where they have come from by telling us up-front that they’re doing their interpretation of the 2nd wave. The third revolution in the set has faded. This is more like the 7th, and if you know anything about surfing or nautical lore, the 7th wave be the mightiest. Suggesting this band is bigger than anything else out right now? Far from it, I’m just alluding to how fucking massive their sound is on that opening track (The typhoon after the balm, that is).

Eternal Strife

Our first full assault in Eternal Strife opens with an Anthony Burgess quote from ‘A Clockwork Orange’

“When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man”

And the straight cross that hits you after the jab of the Calm is the pure mass of entry, your brain a latched cabin door in the woods god-slapped inwards with the antithetical force of the Karakkaze-level strength arsenal of sonorous sounds (Karakkaze is a forceful wind from the Kantō region in Japan, and elgoog translates it as the empty wind, hence antithesis). Not much time elapses before the tone shifts, the bass soars into Parliament chambers, and the guitars announce the spectrum of its oeuvre. You might begin to wonder if this is another Dissection-worshipping troupe, and you would be wrong. If you were mad like me you might wonder if this is a rebirth, for there has been much discourse locally about a renaissance. This is no claim that Imperatus is leading it; their album, its recording and the statement it is making is without a shred of doubt in my mind a massive catalyst in furthering this rejuvenation. Fight me, I’m not hard to find.

We’re still on Eternal Strife. Thick riffs, tasty bridges, ah I might have mistaken it for the verse. The next thought that hits my skull is that the vox are scalding as all of hell’s torment, or more like: “how the fuck do you keep that going for a whole album, not to mention a whole live set?!” Speaking of which, the first chorus is catchier than the black death:

Marching through the forbidden gates of hell

A sense of longing whispers in their ears

Marching through, the demonic parade

Unyielding, untamed, the soldiers without names

I’m not 3 minutes into At the Mercy of the Wind and Imperatus have motherfucking Arrived…

A topic for the interview to follow this review, my hot take is that the music was written first, obviously, right? And if it wasn’t, then that’s another level of concomitant intuition. It would be too easy to fall into the trap of writing about the American and French wars as they’re known in Vietnam. Nattsvärd instead opted for a lyric style that evades specifics of time, place and character – which elevates it into territory of permanence for being that which can be applied to any conflict.

First listens gave me one sole detraction for the solo being so far in front of the mix. However, on subsequent listens it started making more sense; it was a break in momentum, a refusal to tread into an echo-chamber of sameness and repetition. If it does jar, the song does ‘mercifully’ drop back into scorched-earth, traversing into a bass-fueled bridge, upping the intensity into speedy tempestuousness. Imperatus crossed a lot of bridges in order to release their debut. That chorus might just have to be on my personal infectious list this year. 3:49 in length and zero fat. Fuck.

Armored Beast

Listing Marduk, Dark Funeral and Immortal as their main influences – and there for sure are hints towards these behemoths of the genre – the second track in Imperatus’ canon, Armored Beast feels like tribute to Somberlain domains though. It’s an announcement that caught everyone else napping. Did I mention the vocals yet? Well, they demand more attention here for bringing climactic calescence so early in the track. One in which the drums, albeit programmed (are people still sore about the fact that there is a lack of drummers in the world?) are the driving force with tasteful slow rumble fills. Thrashy as all fornication, these gentlemen must have grown up in the abattoir, sub-radio-friendly running time, void of corpulence. Just to remind us that this is a form of atavism solidly founded in the present, we get a bit of a feedback-laced outro.

Yes, this is how you announce your entrance. No EP’s, splits or demos prior to this release, we have but one reference point which is Leukotomy’s debut album from 2023. Itself rooted in the black arts yet way more experimental, the only cue one could take from that album’s sound is that Nattsvärd envisioned a record that had some keys interlaced with the animus of blackened bellicose dreams.

At the Mercy of the Wind

Talking about satiety, no review is replete without mention of a title track that ties all the threads together. At The Mercy of the Wind opens with:

“In the vast expanse where hells collide

Where wings of iron and valor doth ride

So let history unveil the battles within

As our might soars at the mercy of the wind!”

This time we don’t have a sample from a movie or book, this arresting, weighty – and I’ll be damned if that ain’t poetic – voiceover sets the scene, not only for this track but for the record in choate. If you weren’t sure that the vagaries and reverberations of conflict are what is dealt with here, then the howling entrance of Stuka dive-bombers with layers of crazed whammy bar manipulation are sure to enlighten the ignorant to the fact. With cymbals wonderfully splashing, these ears could not get over the bass tone, and the keys in the back are veritably organ-doning. I was also amazed that when I met with Imperatus, the frontman still had a voice box left.

For an album with this many infectious elements intertwined in one package, it is no wonder that their physical release is still stuck in customs; it was so catching that the authorities had to quarantine it before its being unleashed on the general public.

Accursed Warfare

Accursed warfare is a poem of loss which laments the absurdity of war. That break-stop at 1:29 sounds like a bomb that dropped yet never detonated. Or “a bomb that slowly blows.” Before the unleashing of holy hellfire once more. It’s like they have actually been listening to a lot of music, and know how people deplore the second and third acts of albums slacking off. Imperatus decided to speed things up. Being the astute listener that he is, Nattsvärd knew that if they were going to release an imposing debut, the back half of the record would have to be strong.

Altars of Despair

It was perhaps with this in mind then, even if purely cerebrally, that Altars of Despair was their lead single. Starting off with an acoustic intro, Nattsvärd’s intention was always for it to be possible to go seamlessly on vinyl, hence the acoustic through-line to the album opener. Melancholic keys paired with more martial drums and what sounds almost harp-ish – slowly crescendos into a mid-album opening of Hellenic/Scandinavian-bellicose proportions that eventually accresces into the fastest song present on the record.

The drum fill is just a taster though, as the melodic prelude extends as a teaser of note. Leaving just over 3 minutes of blackened vehemence. With lots of straight blasting, some slowing ebbs, a melodic bridge and then a piano-zither sounding piece of maximalism in a keys solo that devolves and then transforms into thrashy vomitory syncopating yes-ness. And dare I say Filth-y as fuck screams and howls.

That nostalgic orchestral overture leading to a drum-fill prelude that jolts us back into metallic fury is one of the best song openings they have written reminiscent of… fuck reminiscence, too many reviews harp on about what other bands a new release sounds like. Press play on the track below already and allow your ears to be blasted by the full wrath of what Imperatus has to offer. For a debut, this track shows more than a foreshadowing of greatness in the offing.

If anything, this album just gets better the deeper you get into it. Clocking in at just under 33 minutes, the cut-off point many melophiles deem as the EP/LP threshold. This very much is a full album, for if many a record of old were to be inspected for carrying too much extra flab, they’d fall way short of the mark.

Following the Morning Star

The back half just keeps going. With sonic kinship to what ground was covered before, another enthralling key prelude, even less time fvckery, as in going straight for the throat. Following the Morning Star opens as a mix of mid- and hold-ya-fvckin-horses-paced strings. The build is elegant before we’re gifted with another solo leading into the eventual chorus which is a fuck yes moment of damn, that could’ve been a great opening or closing track. Another candidate for transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. If you thought the vox could not get any more inflamed before it abates into the bridge riff – enter Sikhism with a chorus chant-screaming of the title. Just twice mind you. By now, this album should be nestled happily in your tray of procurement.

Embers of Hatred (ft. Rêvasseur)

There are few things as alluring as a thicc bass sound, beefy too indeed but it deals as exposition introducing the demented wailing to follow. We’re eventually met with the versatile af cave-growl of Liam W (that name pops up a lot ey?). His guest vox here are way more forward in the mix than Nattsvärd’s were before Satoshi’s (both of Rêvasseur) solo – suave, sophisticated and exactly what the album and song need at this point. Not even 2 minutes in. This is a showing not only of respect but of acquired taste, and ears for variation with the latter half of the track being handled astutely.

From the Ashes of a Forgotten Past

Our final track is From the Ashes of a Forgotten Past. A fade-in instead of a fade-out. Too late for that. In writing their own omens, they have thundered in with fulminating ferocity onto the scene. With keys following instead of the other way round, their presence here are a massive boost adding flavor. Smoothly transitioning back into thrashy bass-laden glory, Imperatus love crossing them bridges. Nattsvärd provides a solo to match that of the majesty of what preceded it, with the idea of what works for the piece as a whole, not for it to overshadow. Before going into 6th gear and finishing off with how you’d imagine they’d want to close a live set.

There’s way more going on in this debut than what the format for a ‘normal’ review would allow me to extrapolate on; please go listen to it, support underground music, hit the button.

What a fuckin statement.