12 Winter Moons Comes the Witches Brew

It’s incredibly rare that I hear but one song off of an album and think to myself “this album is going to be magnificent”, but that’s exactly how I felt almost exactly a year ago when I heard the yearly label sampler from Transcending Obscurity Records and I came across Arkheth. The black metal act was all but unknown to me, but the one track of eight minutes left an immeasurable mark on me, and after a year of waiting, I’ve been lucky enough to behold the sorcery that Arketh has wrought with their upcoming album. The result, you ask? Nothing but pure magic and majesty of the highest order.

When I first heard the song “Your Swamp My Wretched Queen” (changed to “Where Nameless Ghouls Weep” for the album), I was simply blown the fuck away. Everything about what Arkheth brought to the table stunned me in a way that spoke to me on every level imaginable. The melodies were perfection, the vocals fused ridiculously well with the surrounding music, the tone was haunting in the best way possible, the direction was delicious, and the fucking saxophone was nigh on godlike! That’s right – a fucking saxophone in a black metal band. And it fucking works!! How many times do you see that?! I waited for a year for this album, and after listening to it for hours and hours, scraping up every morsel I could, there’s nothing that Arkheth didn’t do perfectly with this album. I mean this wholeheartedly when I say this: “12 Winter Moons Before the Witches Brew” is bound to be a cult hit and already in my Top 10 of 2018.

The word “experimental” can be a dangerous one, especially in metal. It can mean literally anything as there’s no telling as to what directions the experiments will go before the end. But in the case of “12 Winter Moons Before the Witches Brew”, experimental means covering the entire fucking board of what black metal can sound like. And I mean the entire fucking board. Whether it be melodies overflowing with riffs, hypnotic hymns backed by a transcendent soundtrack, soothing atmosphere, haunting fog that chokes you near death, a barrage of black metal speed laced with subtle rhythms, or glorious saxophone solos, Arkheth does it all masterfully. It’s very common to see a black metal band branch out, but to see it taken to this degree and with such skill is something extremely rare. It’s a truly momentous album and the entirety of “12 Winter Moons” is a unique experience that’s wholly captivating. Arkheth seizes you by the shoulders and hurls you into a realm that’s filled with so much variety from so many sources. Both the realms of the known and abyss of the unknown play an integral part in this album and I can’t fucking get enough of it!

It’s not often at all that an album just waves over me like this. Many times it takes a few listens for me to really get a feel and know that I’m truly enjoying the piece, but there’s something about Arkheth’s beautiful display of saxophone driven black metal laced with atmosphere and melody that strikes so many chords with me. The new year hasn’t even started yet, but I know for a fact that “12 Winter Moons Comes the Witches Brew” is going to be one of the best the year has to offer. If you want a premium experience that is (honest to whatever god you may or may not worship) a one of a kind like none before it, then Arkheth is an act you better get really fucking familiar with! My only lament is how long we have to wait for the official release… it’s going to be a very long two months.

Up until two years ago Arkheth had spent most of their 17 years as a full band masterminded by Tyraenos who handled drumming and vocals concurrently. On this third full-length he has taken over the project himself entirely and achieved something truly avant-garde ,and occasionally questionable, in the realm of atmospheric black metal. It is a far cry from their 2003 album ‘Hymns of a Howling Wind’ which wasn’t much more than second wave Norwegian black metal imitation with some cheap keyboards tossed in. A full seven years later they released ‘IX & I: The Quintessence of Algaresh’ a symphonic/melodic black metal record with some lofty, melodramatic ideas that translated into a disjointed folksy prog-black mess where their longer compositions typically worked themselves out beautifully. So, when I saw the press release for this and it gave mention to psychedelics and Oranssi Pazuzu I think my expectations were set off in the wrong direction.

Another seven years had passed, of course, and Arkheth is (yet again) an entirely different project in a different style. I will say that this new style does attempt to go where many bands aren’t: Outer space. It comes across as a personalized take on ‘Kosmonument’ with breaks into space-rock jamming set to metal drumming and a tendency to place spoken word samples where they aren’t necessary. “Dark Energy Equilibrium” best expresses these intentions in it’s first half, and the experience is sinister and psychedelic until the saxophone bursts in and the jank of it collapses into some kind of 2010 jazz-noise metal moment that kills the momentum of the song for me. It is more demented rock music than it is black metal, but when black metal does buzz in it has that lo-fi, atmospheric glint to it that clashes with the bonking space-riffs of “Where Nameless Ghouls Weep” that might be better off accompanying instrumentation closer to Inquisition instead.

As confounding as messaging, style change, and regime change can be when a band’s name stays the same, Arkheth have been brilliantly self-examined and replaced with a superior set of musical concepts. ’12 Winter Moons Comes the Witches Brew’ is soaring with an imaginative 42 minutes of psychedelic extreme metal that clashes boldly with messy and sputtering space rock-isms. It is something new, something slightly borrowed then dirtied, and something disjointedly smart enough to “art” its way out of mediocrity. I hope he pulls even further away from atmospheric black metal’s fringes and blends in some more aggressive elements into the free-janking jazz style he’s found on this record. It is truly unexpected.

Attribution: http://grizzlybutts.com/2018/01/21/arkheth-12-winter-moons-comes-the-witches-brew-2018-review/

Experimental black metal acts…..make you break out in a nervous sweat don’t they! Visions of self-absorbed, incoherent, lo-fi wankery may flash before your eyes, as you await an onslaught of inaudible clattering nonsense but fortunately, Arkheth’s Twelve Winter Moons Comes The Witches Brew is black metal….but certainly not as you know it! In fact, an almost incomprehensible genius is at work here, fashioning ‘songs’ that transform themselves from the most vigorous extreme metal onslaughts to jazz-fusion noodling via moments of tranquil beauty.

Intrigued? You bloody well should be!

Opening track “Trismegistus” may sound relatively predictable – with sounds of anguish and clanking chains conjuring distressing images of hell – but there’s something ‘off’ about the initial blast beats and shrieked vocals, which signify an ulterior motive from the outset. When jazz riffs and a heavy use of saxophone(!) then arrive, you’ll either be in thrall to the dissonant delights of Twelve Winter Moons Comes The Witches Brews….or want to run for cover, slap on some corpse paint and go sulk in a forest for a fortnight.

“Dark Energy Equilibrium” then takes a post-black metal axe to the face of latter day Satyricon, with a few surprising, jazz lounge interludes thrown in just to unsettle you further. Creepy, insistent and completely captivating, it’s arguably the finest track on Twelve Winter Moons Comes The Witches Brew. That is until “The Fool Who Persists in His Folly” – with its joyous explosion of avant-garde noise – makes a fool of you. With its myriad of moods and time changes, this saxophone-led circus of horrors is an experience like no other!

“A Place Under The Sun” then proceeds to take a progressive / post-black metal paddle in Ihsahn’s tumultuous waters, with almost spoken-word vocals and delicate, spacious riffs revealing a menacing fragility of barely restrained drama. This coiled serpent of a song threatens to strike at any moment but even when the blast beats do kick in, they’re tempered, quietened even, in favour of a controlled attack that gives this exquisite song ample room to breathe.

It’s easy to categorise 12 Winter Moons Comes The Witches Brew as a black metal album but that would be far too convenient a label. Instead, Arkheth have crafted a scintillatingly unique fusion of extreme metal components, abstract noise and John Zorn-esque escapades in sonic alchemy. If that sounds appealing , then you may find yourself falling deep into the arms of an album that can proudly call itself ‘different’.

12 Winter Moons Comes The Witches Brew may prove to a journey fraught with danger and unpredictable perils but if you follow in Arkheth’s slipstream, you’ll find yourself on your own path to enlightenment!

Originally published on worshipmetal.com

Looking for a noteworthy new metal release? Perhaps an extreme metal record that lingers in the sphere of atmospheric black metal which then crosses the realm of avant-garde territory and added with some authentic acid rock weirdness? Well then, Arkheth's third full-length studio album "12 Winter Moons Comes the Witches Brew" is exactly the right album that you are seeking for. Coming straight out from a city in the central west region of New South Wales, Australia, Arkheth is a one-man black metal act run by ex-Eternal Dark drummer Tyraenos. Now, Arkheth used to have full band members for the last 17 years, but Tyraenos has taken over the project himself entirely in the course of putting together the band's third studio material. He did have Glen Wholohan's aid though, as the saxophone player gave assistance in providing layered execution of jazzy melodies during the making of "12 Winter Moons Comes the Witches Brew".

One good thing about this album is that it does not just draw the attention of the typical psychedelic art lovers as it also houses a forty-one-minute long catchy dissonant black metal record which holds its own weird hint of psychedelically tripped out leads. Basically, the core of the record loiters in the domain of atmospheric black metal, but from time to time it navigates into a very experimental avant-garde bailiwick while fully embracing Tyraenos's rich layer of acid-fried creativity and tapping in some saccharine flamboyant saxophone playing. There is plenty of seething guitar leads and lots of helical keyboard work in here which helps in creating the eldritch undercurrent that the opus conveys.

Riffs from the guitar department are absolutely enthralling and hypnotizing as it sends the listeners into a spiral space of psychedelic madness. Another thing of beauty about the guitar area in this release is that other than the psychedelic edge that it does offer; it also has that cacophonous nature which cuts through a bent cosmos of atmospheric and avant-garde black metal landscape as the keyboard section lurks behind the background while producing its own haunting vibe. The combination of the guitar and keyboard passages had helped a lot in firmly establishing the evocative essence of the material as a whole.

The drum department of the album is mainly set in a mid-paced tempo, but it often goes to a pounding and sludgy beating; furthermore, it also stirs to fast-moving territories, as the hymns in the offering progress in changing its pulse. Tyraenos' vocal delivery is in a form of ghoulish black metal howls which in a fair and sensible way fits the demented and grim ambiance of the songs. Listeners will also dig the semi-polished production quality of "12 Winter Moons Comes the Witches Brew". I love how the songs in here have that crystal clear sounding resonance, yet it still packs a punch of raw attitude and aggressiveness. The music it possessed is biting, even so, it retains vividness and a flexibility of melodic intonation that tolerates the band's music to breathe. I would also like to address that in this offering Arkheth had created an atmosphere that is only equaled by a few metal acts these days.

To conclude my review of this indelible and evocative work of art, "12 Winter Moons Comes the Witches Brew" is an album worth the money purchasing and totally worth including in your extreme metal collection rack. This is an offering that extreme music aficionados would find easy to digest even with its combination of lengthy psychedelic weirdness and unearthly experimental state. It is a memorable metal release brewed by two dreadful hags in their cauldron of an acid-frenzied inventive black metal recipe as portrayed on the album's artwork. All of the five hymns in here has their own way of catching the audiences' attention and interest, but it's tracks like 'Dark Energy Equilibrium', 'Where Nameless Ghouls Weep', and 'A Place Under The Sun' that stands out the most. "12 Winter Moons Comes the Witches Brew" was released last February 20th of this year, so hurry and go get your own copy now while it's still fresh.

Originally written for https://thepitofthedamned.blogspot.com