Rebus Paranormalibus

A mesmeric recording of evil blizzard atmospheric BM guitar / synth noise, "Rebus Paranormalibus" is the debut album from Clavus, one of many solo projects by Swiss musician Bornyhake. His CV in extreme underground metal is a long one, going as far back as 1998 when he joined the Swiss industrial black metal band Borgne – such dedication over 20 years demands respect! At the same time, we'd expect that, with the musical / recording / producing background he has, Bornyhake should deliver no less than a work of great technical accomplishment and song-writing craft. So into the maelstrom of "Rebus Paranormalibus" we go: the one thing we should fear perhaps, apart from the possibility that our expectations of Bornyhake might be too high, is that after the album finishes we might leave the nightmare storm universe with our material bodies intact but our minds and souls might be lost forever in there.

Opening track "Acies Ventos" is a mighty piece of wild howling white storm, all pummelling beats, gritty noise that transforms into ravenous raging ghost vocals before disintegrating back into swirling dust and dirt particles, and cold ambience. Synth drone tone melodies have a malevolent edge to them. Further into the white hell we go with "Pythonicus", a brief all-ambient interlude that segues into "Six Black Candles", another icy cold offering of droning ambient synth melodies, tremolo guitar squiggle and yet more ferocious raging phantom voices born of white storm demons. As before, the overpowering evil comes from the sickly tones of atmospheric synthesisers. After a brief dive into the dungeon synth melodies of "Majestic Tower", more instrumental terror combining demented tremolo guitars, blowy vocals and horror-movie-soundtrack keyboards follows in tracks like "Dark Tree from the Golden Forest" and "Jantar Mantar Jadu Mantar".

While there is not much to distinguish the tracks, especially the longer tracks, from one another, they all being immersive instrumentals concentrating more on sustaining a definite if desolate vision of a white Hell in perpetual chaos motion, the music overall is very compelling. The guitars tend not to dominate but rather complement the demonic keyboard music. The voices spray their cold venom throughout the tracks and other droning effects build up the sense of a horrifying alien universe invading ours with evil parasitic vampire intent. Changes in key in some tracks send the music down farther into even darker and more demented cul-de-sacs in the Clavus cosmos.

The short tracks are intriguing little instrumental experiments in melodic ambient noise ("Pythonicus"), murky atmospheric dungeon synth ("Majestic Tower"), Gothic organ terror ("Uromancia") or organ dirge music with swamp monster muttering (the closing title track) that hint at potential for Bornyhake, if in future he is so inclined, to compose soundtrack music for films or games. These little ambient pieces can be a bit on the corny side – I must admit, having heard too much church organ music in the context of a B-grade horror film, I find such music hard to take seriously! – and the dark morbid atmosphere surrounding them often makes them sound even more like stereotyped horror flick muzak.

The work Bornyhake has put into this release to make it sound convincingly like a missive from another, monstrous predatory dimension, warning us that our universe is the next to be devoured, is considerable: the music really sounds as if it's teetering on the edge of madness and chaos, the ghost voices are terrifying in hinting at their owners' shapeshifting abilities, and tension and unease reign supreme as the unseen cosmic horror encroaches on our material plane. It might not be the most original work of alien monster universe immersion and maybe with the passage of time the short tracks with the organ music might make us cringe with embarrassment for Clavus – but once its worlds of white chaos invade your mind, they stay there forever. That's the most important achievement of this record.