Dy'th Requiem for the Serpent Telepath

I try to give each of Esoctrilihum's new releases a fair shake. Wonky, experimental black metal is right up my alley (I'm an enormous fan of Anubi). Yet I can never shake the feeling that Esoctrilihum would be a more than halfway decent artist if he just took one-third of his ideas and made an LP of the best instead of releasing everything that comes to mind. Every year - and sometimes more frequently than that - he releases an album that's an hour-plus with 6-7 minute long tracks that are purported to be challenging but end up being the same style of noodly black metal wank. Unfortunately, Dy'th Requiem for the Serpent Telepath continues this trend - and with all the word-salad esotericism you would expect.

To give the project some credit, this LP does sound more experimental than previous releases with the goobly synths and violin. In fact, the violin reminds me a little bit of the Swiss ambient black metal project Paysage d'Hiver - specifically in Geister and the self-titled LP. The violin soars over the black metal, giving this album a couple minutes (though not enough) of genuine immediacy. The mix is a little paunchier this time, which generally fits the music and gives those synths all the time to shine.

And yet paradoxically, this is still a surprisingly loud release. Lots of the criticisms I apply to previous Esoctrilihum releases apply here as well. The constant use of synths gives it an awkward mutedness rather than the spaciousness the song structure deserves - as if Skepticism's Stormcrowfleet were remastered for the loudness wares. The tracks are far too long for their compositions - making it sound like the repetitive nature of tracks like "Agakuh" and "Nominès Haàr" are to fill space rather than to use space. Again, I can't help but feel that they would be so much better served by trimming. The frustrating fade-outs that end pretty much all of the songs make for awkward endings, giving the impression of a strangely unconfident writing style that doesn't quite know how to end things. By halfway into the album, the same mid-tempo black metal and organ-ish synths begin to meld together, which isn't helped by most songs being - once again - the same overextended length.

I want to like this band. On paper, it has everything I want. This still isn't it.

Originally posted to RateYourMusic. Edited for Metal Archives.