The Tenth Sub Level of Suicide

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.

Dan Bruce Beta Collective live at the Constellation

Last night I saw a pretty cool jazz band with my bro. I looked up shows around Chicago and I noticed that my jazz instructor (from six years ago when I was at University of Parkside-Wisconsin) Russ Johnson was playing with this band at this modern jazz club called the Constellation. Russ is a great trumpet players that is involved with various groups probably all around the Midwest and New York. He's pretty well known in the jazz community. Anyways, the group is led by a guitarist composer named Dan Bruce and the band features Russ Johnson (trumpet), Chris Madsen (tenor saxophone), Rob Clearfield (keyboards), Clark Sommers (bass), Jon Dietemyer (drums).

We only stayed for the first set because we took two buses and the train and it took like an hour and a half to get there. In addition, my brother has work in the morning. However, that first set was pretty great! Dan Bruce took the majority of the solos but there was a great tenor sax solo that was just about reaching into free jazz territory. I heard some squeaks! It was great hearing that because this is more of a new jazz concert. By that I mean the music sounds very modal and its all original music. This was an album release concert after at. Very few people in attendance. Think Ole Coltrane if it had electric guitar, effects, and electronic keyboards. For the most part they were reading the music off manuscript paper but it was obvious when they went off the cuff and started to truly improvise.

Dan Bruce is a great guitar player with plenty of chops but it seemed like his improvisations were a little too perfect. Too rehearsed. I would've liked to hear some mistakes from him. I like to hear some struggle sometimes from jazz musicians. That's not to say he isn't a good improviser at all because what I heard was all great stuff, very musical and tasty as they say. I would say I was more impressed with his chord voicings and comping rather than say his composing ability or single note lines. I thought it was cool that he was using some electronic effects with his guitar too. I wish he would've used more of that, at least during the first set. After all whats the point of effects if you're only going to use them very sparingly?

Chris Madsen on tenor sax had a great solo that really stood out. There was a musical buildup slowly to a climax with squeaks thrown in there. It almost seemed like what he was playing was out of time, out of sync with the band but it still sounded great. He was even doing this blowing technique where you blow very lightly into the horn and get this sort of raspy tone. He also had a lot of bebop licks thrown in there too. That was a turning point at that part of the set.

Russ Johnson was mostly playing in harmony (melodies) with the guitar and sax but he did have a pretty great solo on the last tune. I was pretty impressed. He's the elder statemen of the band being the oldest so he probably has the most experience in playing jazz and he's probably been on more records and stuff than the other guys. His solo started off with a couple flubbed notes. My brother said "he needs practice" but my brother doesn't know enough about jazz to realize that what he was doing is actually a trumpet technique. I believe he was doing the same thing Madsen was doing, that technique where you blow into the horn but just barely enough to make some raspy tones.

Anyways, his solo was probably the best. He built it upon a theme, expanded upon it, and ended it with some virtuoso fast stuff. His high notes sounded superb. I used to be a trumpet player in high school so I know how difficult that is to do. His solo almost had a Spanish vibe as my brother said.

There was also a keyboards solo but I think it was more of "set the mood" sorta thing rather than a solo. And there was also a bass and drum solo but in a way they were kind of overshadowed by the compositions. It seemed like their solos were shorter than the others but I may be wrong.

After the show I talked to Dan Bruce and said,"great guitar playing man, that was like masterclass on chord voicings". I geeked out pretty hard seeing such great guitar playing. Then I asked if Russ was around and I talked to him. He remembered me from UW-Parkside, which I briefly attended about five years ago. It didn't work out at that college but the fact that I saw him at the show was probably a shock for him. Of course he asked,"what are you doing here?" Lol, it was kind of funny. We shook hands and I told him I've been practicing a lot of guitar, working on jazz standards, and that I've started a band. He said to keep shedding, a musicians catch phrase to keep practicing. Great moment of the Chicago trip so far. Who would've thought right?

It was a great set and I'm really glad my brother enjoyed it even though he isn't a fan of jazz guitar as he says. Maybe I'll get to see more great live music out here in Chicago, particularly jazz.

Jazz isn't dead. It just smells funny. -Frank Zappa