Xasthur
Nocturnal Poisoning
Blood Fire Death, 2002

Music of total darkness which reflects the bleakest of horizons for a world in denial of becoming envenomed and buried by the stagnation and obliviousness of its inhabitants, Xasthur is misanthropic black metal insistently executed in theory of early 1990s Norwegian bands yet manipulated by delirious ambience, creating claustrophobic soundscapes of twisted and horrifying nightmares. Vision of lone member Malefic, Xasthur embody the purest isolationist resistance towards modern society and vehement rejection of participation in any genre "scene". Debut full-length Nocturnal Poisoning is solitary black art conjured through a concentrated hatred known only in the deepest of nighttime solitude, when the sick activity of meaningless functionality and wretched man-made noise pollution are lost to numb dreams in hollow sleep, leaving only the beautiful profound stillness and heavy silence of night for undisturbed contemplation and infinite inspiration.

Necrotic of sound like bedimmed dreams of dank, deep caverns, the music is drowned in ultra-fuzz of guitar distortion thickly layered over minimalist drum-programming and eerie keyboards of otherworldly dimensions. Vocals are painful shrieks of hatred from distant realms, with a presence of sound like phantoms from the darkest abyss who scream in whispers at a world consumed with nothingness. Melancholic chords conspire with streaming riffs to form songs that paradoxically obscure gripping melodies. Sometimes slow and brooding like the most tormenting of depressions, sometimes blindingly fast in an abstract storm of midnight chaos, always mesmerizing in its presence like demons whispering seduction in distant corners of cold rooms.

The sound is distorted beyond all hope and egregiously raw, even by black metal standards. There is simply no other way for this music to be presented if it aspires to achieve the desired atmospheric effect, and it does so not just by being intentionally necrotic, but by utilizing this method of production as a way of emphasizing imperative ambiances lurking within these bewildering odes to hallucinogenic darkness of the spirit.

"I've entered your dreams out of fear
I found nothingness in everything and ripped dreams from your soul,
Take your life, end your life before me,
Your death is the energy that brings me life again"

Through a seriousness of fate-fulfilling intent these songs portray an alarming atmosphere of complete and utter blackness. At its core, this music reflects the unbroken individual spirit rising above the constant adversity of existence in the determination of realizing a truth of emotional reality in a form of artistic expression that leaves normals in shock and denial by its grim representation of life. For sure, the aura of this music carries a disturbing tone, as if witnessing black voids slowly overtake all in sight. Final track "Forgotten Depths Of Nowhere" is a haunting minimalist ambient track brilliantly presenting imageries through sound of apocalyptical ruins impossibly viewed from above. Xasthur is corrosive hatred and suicidal despair intertwined in vertiginous dreams.

Perceived in historical context Nocturnal Poisoning cannot compare with the great works of the genre of a decade previous to its release. This is essentially because on the whole Xasthur does not do what those albums did, which was introduce a shape of imagination through the expression of universal experience that transcends the individual condition. However, it remains relevant to the genre by not only facility, but by communicating and portraying a glimpse of total reclusiveness and worship of nihility through anti-social self-discovery. At times, Xasthur reaches an even deeper emotional profundity than has ever been achieved in black metal by exploring further the emotional darkness of uninterrupted misanthropic isolation, yet this only expands past explorations rather than expose a panoptic going-through from which a more wholly meaningful aesthetic experience can arise. Nevertheless, Xasthur has, more effectively than almost anyone else since the glory days of this genre, produced music that adequately and accurately conveys the truest emotions and ambiance of the spirit of black metal.

8/6/06

1. In the Hate of Battle
2. Soul Abduction Ceremony
3. A Gate Through Bloodstained Mirrors
4. Black Imperial Blood
5. Legion of Sin and Necromancy
6. A Walk Beyond Utter Blackness
7. Nocturnal Poisoning
8. Forgotten Depths of Nowhere

Xasthur
The Funeral Of Being
Blood Fire Death, 2003

Xasthur’s second album, The Funeral Of Being, shadows the themes of Nocturnal Poisoning in detached reflections of begrimed and humid abstraction. Once more, Malefic records through the most simplistic devices (sounds like possibly a 4-track recorder) which submerges the music into foggy ambience and primitive obscurity. Through a procedure of echoed systems of technique music is offered as sacrifice towards imperceptible realms. Actual songs in the traditional definition are swallowed up and spewed out in soundshapes of monotone circulation and transplanted tones sculpted through buried mechanistic percussion, shadowy keyboard ambience, and excruciated shrieks. Elusive melodies flow in monochromatic currents of riffs from guitars of venomous subtlety to awaken misty fabrications and sordid atmospheric presence.

Abstract, ambient black metal is the purpose of Xasthur, and while none may perform it with as much deliriousness and unyielding hatred, anything in the way of cohesive composition becomes ultimately lost. Short instrumental pieces that seem barely realized separate more involved tracks, themselves often seeming underdeveloped and partially accomplished. In a twisted, demented manner this may add to the overall feel of the album as one constructed by an artist desperately clinging to fading sanity, frantically releasing ideas and themes that, while short on complete form of movement, provide the desired intent through shredded emotions. Much of the disc is frozen in dense murkiness and acerbic impositions, as wayward souls who’ve forsaken direction for gloomy journeys in nighttime forests.

As a whole, The Funeral Of Being lacks the consistency of compelling atmosphere of its predecessor, and is significantly more disjointed in structure. Yet the emotional impact of this music is far from vacant, assisted largely due to a stronger presence of hate-ridden and agonizing vocals in the sound. A continuous war through this work rises between atmospheric sustainment and articulated melody and indiscreet centralized thematic, rendering the album, and indeed Xasthur itself, ultimately noncommittal. Where Xasthur triumphs is in the shattering of the perceptible in abundant emotional blackness, however, because tracks rarely achieve full realization through expansion of ideas and conceptual range, the experience of the album’s entirety feels incomplete.

8/9/06

1. The Awakening to the Unknown Perception of Evil
2. Tyrant of Nightmares
3. Intro
4. Sigils Made of Flesh and Trees
5. Blood From the Roots of the Forest Part 2
6. Blood From the Roots of the Forest Part 1
7. Intro
8. Bleak Necrotic Paleness
9. Reflecting Hateful Energy
10. Tyrant of Nightmares (Darkened Winter Promo ‘01 Version)
11. Outro

Xasthur
Telepathic With The Deceased
Moribund, 2004

Expansion of frayed limits through a firmly established conjoining of ghostly melancholia and anti-human frustration occurs on Xasthur’s third effort, Telepathic With The Deceased. Cryptic and timeless, in which moments aren’t as such fragments of time, but rather shattered into a linear infinity of bewildering darkness, the music of Xasthur is rebellious even towards entrapping standards of traditional black metal in the endeavor to stretch emotional responses beyond the expected manipulations of the genre. This, above all, is the ultimate intention for Xasthur’s craft, even towards severing loyalty to the completeness of a particular composition. Telepathic With The Deceased attempts to clean up the majority of the disassociated structuralism of The Funeral Of Being, and mostly succeeds, while injecting an increased monochromatic psychedelia.

At the core of all of Xasthur’s music is a deeply profound affection for nocturnal solitude. Indeed, the music is driven by creative forces that long for solitude, often violently so. It’s very existence depends on an isolation of its creator that goes far beyond a simple shutting of the door and closing of the shades. It is of a hateful solitude that this music speaks, a misanthropic isolation that ordinary humans would find flabbergasting if they could even conceive of it. Listening to this disc in its entirety in deepest night, while the world is asleep before the dawn summons mechanistic obedience to illusory ends, is potentially hazardous to a stable frame of mind if the listener submerges into this music free of all hesitation and having eliminated all possible distraction. Really, one should wish it no other way.

While Malefic either intentionally disregards emphasis on cohesive compositional structure, or simply doesn’t possess a talent for engaging songcraft, it really isn’t the point of this music. Perhaps his greatest skill lies in an unorthodox approach to guitar layering, which, combined with the "awful" recording quality and his predilection for abruptly and unpredictably switching gears in speed and ambience, serves as the music’s most effective component. This technique reeks of disturbing insomnia and enraged hysteria, establishing a system corrupting atmosphere of shapeless disintegration. This aspect of Xasthur’s sound, along with Malefic’s beyond-tormented screams reaching more penetrating tones from distant realms of emotional anguish, show the clearest progression, while programmed drums and haunting keyboards continue as before, adding texture, fluctuating shades of darkness, and foundational current.

Xasthur has been quite prolific up to this point, yet approaching danger of quantity over quality, or rather an abundance of material with a minuscule amount of development. Nocturnal Poisoning remains Xasthur’s most convincing display of abstract melancholy and misanthropic absurdity through consistency of vision, and though subtle variations on this theme have occurred on subsequent releases, one senses either a curiously exaggerated patience or a thinness of ideas towards meaningful evolution. This music is extremely effective emotionally when experienced in the appropriate setting of environment and mind, and conjures often a phenomenal atmosphere which can offer a glance into mental/emotional/spiritual dimensions much like hallucinogenic substances, yet has heretofore not revealed that it can go above and beyond this objective, making the prospect of acquiring more than one Xasthur album seem redundant. There is enormous potential for Xasthur, if Malefic can expand his compositional range as he has his riff alterations and guitar-layering techniques towards creating spell-binding nihilistic voids of terrifying possibilities.

8/9/06

1. Entrance into Nothingness
2. Slaughtered Useless Beings in a Nihilistic Dream
3. Abysmal Depths are Flooded
4. May Your Void Become as Deep as My Hate!
5. Telepathic With the Deceased
6. A Walk Beyond Utter Blackness (Instrumental)
7. Cursed Revelations
8. Drown into Eternal Twilight
9. Murdered Echoes of the Mind
10. Exit

Xasthur

Blood Fire Death

Moribund

Xasthur Discography

Split with Orosius (Seld-released, 1999)
A Darkened Winter EP (Self-released, 2001)
A Gate Through Bloodstained Mirrors demo (Profane Creations, 2001)
Split with Acid Enema (Self-released, 2002)
Nocturnal Poisoning (Blood Fire Death, 2002)
Suicide In Dark Serenity EP (Bestial Onslaught, 2003)
The Funeral Of Being (Blood Fire Death, 2003)
Split with Nachtmystium (Autopsy Kitchen/Shades Of Death, 2004)
Split with Angra Mainyu (Total Holocaust, 2004)
Telepathic With The Deceased (Moribund, 2004)
To Violate The Oblivious (Total Holocaust, 2004)
Split with Leviathan (Profound Lore, 2004)
Split with Nortt (Total Holocaust, 2004)
Subliminal Genocide (Hydra Head, 2006)