Not your average loner one-man black metal band under the spotlight here - nooo, this is an act headed by one Lord Ephemeral Domignostika who plays all his instruments (snare drum, bass drum, guitar) at the same time and sings as well. The snare drum and bass drum have kick drum pedals (the bass drum with a double kick drum pedal) leaving the Lordly One's hands free to play his axe. All songs are entirely improvised with no preconceived or prepared lyrics, melodies, riffs, loops and manipulations so this recording is an almost continuous vomit of seven unnamed tracks. At first they sound very similar and it's quite possible they have a theme in common but after several listens they do have their distinctive charms. The style of music is usually raw and primitive with mostly basic beats and rhythms and lots of guitar scrabbling, all overlaid with screechy BM-styled vocals.
Track 1 is a warm-up for what's to come later: it goes at a steady trot with mostly spoken if garbled vocals that don't vary much in tone. It's followed by a perkier song with a more brisk pace and rhythm and hints of the hysteria that's to come. Then hell breaks loose in Track 3 with squealing chainsaw guitar, floppy / tinny drumming and the most demented screechy nails-down-the-board howling, yowling and rowling this side of an Akitsa disc. Amazingly LED keeps up the racket for four minutes. Not sure if I can stand any more! But there are four more songs to cover so on we go ...
More delirious vocal gabblings follow in Track 4 with the music speeding up and the whole piece having a bit of the flavour of the French Black Legions. Even more hilarious is Track 5 with guitar going completely haywire with a histrionic life all its own and dropping a key into a strain of runaway punky-sounding music diarrhoea that one of the Black Legions bands (Mutiilation) might have done once upon a time but at a slower, more human pace. There's a little bit of rock'n'roll in the guitar melody as it zooms up and down, up and down. Track 6 is upon us with a revisit to Ile d'Akitsa, all shrieking unintelligible yowls and screams, and a martial rhythm to match. The final track is dominated by trashy biscuit-tin pounding noise and still more deranged singing. The fellow just doesn't wanna let us go!
This Lord Ephemeral Domignostika guy is pretty brave indeed to put his reputation on the line by performing songs he makes up on the spot, playing all strings and percussion with his hands and feet. The lyrics are all garbled and scrambled and I don't know if he's singing in English, French, Klingon or a language he's made up himself. Some of the music can be repetitive and I guess that repetition goes with this particular territory. If LED is indeed channelling Akitsa and the Black Legions bands, he surely belongs to a special breed of maniac. Due to the nature of the performance and the concept of the act, technical polish isn't to be expected but the different body parts of LED all manage to keep in time together and the music isn't at all loose or chaotic. It's actually tight, it flows very well and the rhythms provide a definite structure and direction for the manic screaming and guitar.
Honestly though an act like this is better served by DVD releases or a website streaming live performances. Sound recordings can only convey so much of PN's attraction and mania, and the novelty aspect of one man playing all instruments and singing is completely lost. Though if you do prefer PN's self-released albums, they do come with sleeves in that suspiciously coppery-brown colour and funny smell that'll send pet dogs and cats into a frenzy ... yes, it's said to be blood ...