AN NCS PREMIERE: VEILBURNER — “WOE YE’ WHO BUILD THESE CROSSES… ARE THOSE WHO WILL SERVE US DEATH”

(written by Islander)

Our beloved Metal-Archives (well, beloved by many, despised by others) still calls the music of Pennsylvania-based  Veilburner “Black/Death Metal”, even after a run of six albums released so far, culminating in 2022’s VLBRNR, that throws bombs in the midst of such genre conventions, coupled with lyrical formulations that are no more conventional than the music.

M-A is to be forgiven for so rudely simplifying the band’s musical eclecticism in their expressions of fury and disgust over humanity’s self-mangling. Especially after VLBRNR, we’d drown in hyphens and slashes trying to incorporate all the musical ingredients the band have so freely thrown into the mix in musically rendering the recurrent absurdities of human existence.

M-A is also to be forgiven because Veilburner‘s eclecticism isn’t scattershot. They do have their anchor-points in death and black metal, like the bolts that connect a swaying bridge to its rocky endpoints above a chasm, the bridge they race across in ways both dizzying and dazzling (and frightening) without pitching headlong into a flailing descent with no good end.

The history built by those first six albums makes the impending release of a seventh one a signal event, with intrigue being a chief part of the anticipation: What have they done now? We already have signs, because two album tracks have surfaced so far, and now we bring a third one to your attention.

The name of this newest one is “Woe Ye’ Who Build these Crosses…Are Those Who Will Serve Us Death“. In the new album’s running order, it’s the penultimate song in a seven-track sequence that bears the overarching name The Duality of Decapitation and Wisdom. Seven songs, each of them seven minutes in length, and all of them connected to the numerological significance of the number, but connected to other subjects as well, which the album’s title points to.

We’ll share this description offered on behalf of Transcending Obscurity Records, which will release the album on November 15th:

Thematically, the character(s) at the center of the Veilburner universe continue a journey into the abyss that began in their previous album, VLBRNR, exploring the shadows and secrets that we keep from ourselves and embracing the idea of Rahu and Ketu (the head and the body).

From this exploration, Leviathan is revealed both as the almighty “tail-eater,” that which has no beginning and no end, and that which is Egregore, the very thing that has been us all along. One cannot be whole until a weight is lifted off the shoulders; the weight of the world, our egos, our spirits, and our souls. We must lose our heads to gain enlightenment.

You’ll probably remember those words, and begin to understand them better, when you listen to the song we’re premiering. On the one hand, it’s a dizzying race well-calculated to cause us to lose our heads. On the other hand, Veilburner pause in their race to engage in an unsettling reflection.

At speed, the drums spit bullets and hack at our necks, pierced by shimmering cymbal-strikes, while the ragged-edged riffing manically skitters and spasms, pierced by wordless howls and demented, strangling snarls. Flurries of shrill, screeching expulsions add to the mounting mood of derangement — yet there’s also something quickly addictive about the lunatic riffing.

Suddenly we have the pause, in which distant notes eerily and dismally ring in isolation, and distorted proclamations clamor over shimmering ambience and a dimly growling bass.

When the music ramps up again toward further discordance and dementia, the vocals sound like a furious and fanatical conversation among the population of a demon bestiary, backed by sizzling insectile riffage and the strange whistling of freaked-out soloing, joined by theremin-like quiverings. Maybe some marvelous discovery has occurred?

LINE-UP:
Mephisto Deleterio – Music and production
Chrisom Infernium – Vocals and album design

T.O. will release the album on multiple formats — gatefold vinyl LP, 8-panel digipack CD, cassette tape, and digital — along with apparel and other merchandise, and bundles. All the materials feature the fantastically mysterious cover art of Luciana Nedelea. The label recommends the record for fans of Blut aus Nord, Akhyls, Deathspell Omega, Oranssi Pazuzu, Akercocke, and Venomous Echoes.

After the links we’ve also included streams of those two previously released album tracks, “III Visions of Hex-Shaped Hiss, Behead the Howling Spirit” and “Shadows of a Shadow“. Listen to them. More surprises await you.

PRE-ORDER:
https://veilburnerband.bandcamp.com/album/the-duality-of-decapitation-and-wisdom
http://eu.tometal.com/
http://transcendingobscurity.aisamerch.com/

VEILBURNER:
https://facebook.com/veilburner