Black metal, dark ambient genre Here's an album review for the heavy metal music fans. I got into black metal the other day. I was at my friends' house watching a rockumentary about the glam/hair metal band Motley Crue. I saw a documentary about black metal and we watched it. I had already known about the 1st wave of black metal, even some second wave but I didn't know much about the third wave black metal bands of today. Then we watched a music documentary that was specifically about one man black metal bands. That's how I found out about Leviathan.
Leviathan is a one-man black metal project under the direction of Wrest. He plays all the instruments and does the vocals as well. His main instrument is drums and it definitely shows, as the drums on this record are brutal. Levithan's debut release was this record I'm discussing, The Tenth Sub Level of Suicide, released in 2003.
| 1. | "Introit" | 1:14 | ||
| 2. | "Fucking Your Ghost in Chains of Ice" | 5:40 | ||
| 3. | "Sardoniscorn" | 9:54 | ||
| 4. | "The Bitter Emblem of Dissolve" | 5:55 | ||
| 5. | "Scenic Solitude and Leprosy" | 6:45 | ||
| 6. | "He Whom Shadows Move Towards" | 6:38 | ||
| 7. | "Submersed" | 3:15 | ||
| 8. | "Mine Molten Armor" | 7:03 | ||
| 9. | "The Idiot Sun" | 9:33 | ||
| 10. | "At the Door to the Tenth Sub Level of Suicide" | 15:02 | ||
| Total length: | 71:05 | |||
As you can see from the song titles above this is could be described as depressive suicidal black metal. It sounds like a joke until you hear the music. Then you realize it makes perfect sense. All the songs except for one deal with suicide. Art is supposed to represent something. This album is true horror. The music screams at you, takes you by force, shouting fire in the dark pits. Images from Dante's Inferno comes to mind, although that is to cliche and trite to truly describe this record. This record is more.
The guitar riffs are fast, loud, and heavily distorted. The drum tempos vary from slow to batshit crazy blast beats. There's ambient use of keyboards that appears throughout the album. The bass has euphoric moments where it's very loud in the mix.
The vocals are what makes this album so heavy, heady, horrific, and euphoric. The vocals at first sound like your typical high pitched black metal screams, something like Mayhem or Burzum. However, at some point, you realize that Wrest is doing his own style, but he knows the black metal tradition so well that he still screams along with the black metal ballpark. Some of the screams here are haunting. Wrest sounds inhuman, like humans trapped in hell, impaled on stakes. That sounds so terribly brutal but its also very metal. These kind of vocals are very hard to get used to at first. In fact, the main reason why I didn't get into black metal for such a long time is that I couldn't stand the vocals. The vocals in black metal take some time getting used to. But once you're accustomed to these raw, primal screams, you get into it. It doesn't stay jokey. Sometimes I used to laugh at black metal vocals. Now I find something emotional in it.
I can only sometimes catch what the lyrics are within the screams but I would be down to read the lyrics sometimes online on my next listen to this record. Knowing that I can't understand most of the lyrics makes the vocals that much more intense and surprisingly, more important. The fact that this is a record about suicide shows you a little bit about what Wrest had to struggle and deal with in his life.
Wrest grew up with abusive parents. He was in and out of group homes in California, sometimes going homeless when not sleeping on friends' couches. Unsurprisingly, he tried to take his own life sometime after the making of this record. He also has controversy surrounding his personal life, as his ex-girlfriend accused him of assault. He's a troubled guy that doesn't own a computer, makes records, but works a regular job in California to support himself.
What attracted me to Leviathan in the documentary I saw on YouTube about one man black metal bands is the fact that he's a good musician, he wasn't an edgelord black metal musician [not stereotypical, not wearing corpsepaint and hoods] and there are few great American black metal bands out there, let alone one man band American black metal. He's a fucking unicorn. I liked his personality in the interview for the documentary. I realized things about myself from that. I saw that I don't need validation from others for my music or art. That was huge.
Wrest's guitar riffs are very good. Sometimes he reminds me of Black Sabbath but then he gets into more typical black metal riffs, not unlike Dark Throne. Some of the best moments on TTSLOS are the slow tempos, filled with doom metal guitar riffs and keyboards. This is something that an American black metal band would do a lot better than say Norweigian or Scandinavian black metal bands simply because Americans groove more.
Lastly, I can't state enough how nihilistic and brutal this record is. However, there is beauty in the darkness. The power of choice in our actions, whether to or not do, to be or not to be. This might be the darkest black metal album I'll hear for a long time. There's tons of chaotic ugliness here but the little bit of beauty goes a long way, I can feel that my own darker emotions have value, but I don't have to wallow in it. As one of the first black metal albums that I actually sat through the entire way, I'd say this is some damn good black metal. It isn't for everyone, but there is a release of feelings and emotions after listening to something like this. You're free when you're done. Free in the sense that this music will bring out different emotions in you, and its a release. In short, it makes me feel good.
I used to work with Martin Arevalo, a Mexican black metal drummer I met through open jams. After hearing this I'm ready to get back into playing metal music, focusing on a more doom and black metal sound, slow, and fast tempos. I plan on recording the guitar, bass, and vocal parts at my house, and having Martin record drums at his place. We're going to continue our metal project, called Mass, check us out on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9Z7vL-Ccr8. That's the sound we're going for. I plan on writing more songs and putting together a super lo-fi recording. Maybe we could put it out for sale on Bandcamp when we're done. I've learned from black metal to keep my metal riffs simple and to play more rhythm. I've been able to come up with more catchy, doomy riffs that way. I've been playing straight-ahead jazz with a saxophone player but after listening to Levithan I realized I shouldn't give up on metal. I'll still be listening to tons of classical and jazz music but I still got heavy rock and roll in the mix too.
