Goatpsalm  

Erset La Tari
Aesthetic Death 2012

This unholy trinity of ambient black metal industrialists releases a plague of darkness upon the world with their second album.  The album opens with the discordant shards of Utuk Xul.  Hateful echoes of guitars call to you like a distant lilitu, haunting and bewitching yet full of shadowy vengeance.  The guitars warble while tinkling bells and deep tones create a ceremonial atmosphere.  Ghostly scraping black metal vocals drip venomous words throughout the song.  At times this reminds me of a much more structured Abruptum.  Drifting synths and guitars create Pink Floydian textures throughout the dreamlike transition to the second half of the song.  As the song progresses tribal drum sounds and slow motion throbs resurrect the ritualistic qualities of the composition.  Shifting layers of ambient noise rise and recede like waves of desert sand.  Bab Illu further explores the dreamlike qualities of eastern guitar lines and deep ambient tones.  It's as if they are priests greeting the arrival of the sun within an ancient temple.  Quietly and ever so subtly the final track, Under The Trident Of Ramanu floats in like a soft, but cold breeze.  However this quickly morphs into raw, plodding black metal.  The feel of the song is not unlike an industrial union of Burzum and Beherit.  The song takes on a gloomy, doomy emotion that brings to mind a rawer version of Stabat Mater perhaps.  The final movements of the song dwell on drone noises and lumbering astral chords. Goatpsalm creates an album that explores some of the more mystical and ceremonial aspects of the black metal fringe.  Long, slowly shifting passages allow for extended periods of introspection and spiritual reflection.