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Catacombs > In the Depths of R'lyeh > Reviews > Reaper
Catacombs - In the Depths of R'lyeh

Lovecraftian Horror Manifest - A Monument of Cosmic Inspired Genius - 100%

Reaper, March 19th, 2019
Written based on this version: 2006, CD, Moribund Records

From time to time there emerge artists that capture the archetype of some aspect of reality or genre almost effortlessly, as if their genius molds various constructs together in a fit of destiny not much unlike geniuses of physics, like Newton, or Math like Godel. Almost always these artists are short-lived, leaving behind their very few monuments to mankind to be enshrined in and judged by history rather than obscured by any further efforts on following albums or the band's evolution and search for their next seminal work. Examples are bands like Disembowelment, Thergothon, Demilich, and Acid Bath, forever fossilized as cult exemplars, securing their place in the informal metal hall of fame off of usually 3 or fewer paradigm shaking releases. Catacombs is such a band, and year by year its paragon capturing masterpiece righteously expands the cult following to place Catacombs in the metal hall of fame for its contributions to funeral doom, doom metal, and heavy metal music.

Few albums can claim that they begin prior to the first track, but "In the Depths of R'lyeh" transcends the meek audio-physical limitations and captures the participant first with the title and artwork to set and fit the concept and atmosphere unlike most albums. Most albums aren't bound by such a dark and nigh mystical sense of wholeness. To get to where Xathagorra must have gone to in imagining the landscape of his sound, we must likewise descend into our dark insane servility before the surreal forever-mysterious cosmos. When we finally humble ourselves before its representation in Cthulhu in the artwork, we then become freshly prepared initiates for the opening of the next dimension.

The very opening rips your expectations asunder, piercing your ears with an atypical sharpness for funeral doom, before descending likewise sharply into the relentless pit of a darkening, spiraling vortex of inescapably drowning transitions. Halfway into the first track you start to realize that you've just crossed the event horizon of your journey, and didn't realize that you've been being pulled in, down into the well of dread. But it is now too late for you, as your destiny is incomplete without seeing this journey to its end.

By the time you get to "At the Edge of the Abyss" you've had gone through a labyrinth that's reshaped your body by pulling and twisting, not knowing where this beautiful nightmare is going. But at the edge of this new abyss, your realize how small and insignificant your previous wisdom and experience really was. You may have thought that after 2 tracks and 28 minutes in, you would have come to know what to expect and even applauded the album for how well it captures the eerie gloom of the Lovecraftian Universe, but then "At the Edge of the Abyss" enshrouds and consumes you to the point that it's difficult to describe what calls your attention except for all of it.

There's something to be said about artistic expression that captures the perfect unique mold, but that ultimately fails to be describe by mere words. The spiraling, repetition of permeating keyboards escalate the anticipation of the ineffable doom as you approach 8 minutes and 21 seconds into this third track which marks exactly the midway point of the album and also the exact moment of a downward spiral transitioning to a seemingly upwards swing... as if precisely orchestrated. In retrospect the first half of your journey does now, looking back, seem like a long descent into a trench of foreboding doom that hits you before you have a chance of realizing your enslavement to it. Suddenly you've come face to face with the Lovecraftian horror as it fills your body with Xathagorra's Cthulhian vocals. This album, and this track particularly, is a journey with layers of complexity and depth that can't all be captured in one listen; years later it reveals new structures. This journey continues as the Cthulhu worthy rasps reverberate like empty space imploding rather than a source producing sound. The display is in full form on "Where No Light Hath Shone... (But For That of the Moon)" as you grasp to whatever is left of your expectations and Xathagorra consumes you whole as you float within the caverns of his echoes.

This album, especially with proper headphones, reveals layers of cataclysmic soundscapes that together form a uniquely crafted masterpiece. It's not often that an album can evoke a sense of respect from a listener, beyond the regular type of awe at epic, badass, and pivotal albums. It really requires some touch of near mystical combination of insight, feel, luck, and artistry. This is one such album, and it turns the regular subject-object, or listener-source, experience on its head making the listener and source undergo a fascinating fusion of time and mind. One may even feel as if led by the album, as if one's time didn't belong to them but to the direction of the sound. This is a normal effect of the visceral, hypnotic, and intoxicating desolation produced by this reality weaver. I'm writing this review some 12 years after purchasing the album and listening to it many times throughout the years, with each journey being as captivating as the previous, and revealing layers of intricate twisted design. Witness this monument and testament to cosmic inspired genius as it easily secures its place in metal history and Lovercraftian culture.