Not quite two and a half years ago, when I first discovered Esoctrilihum (through the "Eternity of Shaog" album), this was a mysterious solo project mixing black / death metal, folk, psychedelia and progressive rock into a brutal and complex maximalist fusion, epic and bombastic in nature, and informed by a searing and incredibly dark vision. Early albums like "Eternity of Shaog" could be very cartoony in their concepts and in some of their musical details, but they were consistent in developing an eccentric vision, a model of viewing our universe even, of lush and complex decay, of an evil stunning in the scale of its dark and impenetrable corruption. Since then, in a short period, much of the openly cartoonish Lovecraftian influence has gone, and the thunderous blackened death hybrid bombast has become less deliberately chaotic and confrontational, and has also calmed down somewhat with the increasing addition of dark ambient and dungeon synth influence. More recent albums like "Consecration of the Spiritus Flesh" and "Saopth's", while still brutal and overbearing, have (paradoxically perhaps) become easier to digest, music-wise anyway, though their themes and lyrical matter remain impenetrable.
Esoctrilihum's most recent album "Funeral" – the ninth in five and a half years, how's that for a work ethic? – is a sombre, melodic work mixing equal parts ugly savagery, emotional pain and drama, a tragic majesty and a melancholy beauty that can come from even the darkest, ugliest and most tormented corners of the album's sound universe. The title track alone, opening the album, is a microcosm of what is to come on later tracks: it's a spacious, sprawling piece, already monumental in style and ambition, with Esoctrilihum man Asthâghul singing not only in his trademark slurping monster-ghoul vocals but also in a cleaner tenor style which, oddly enough, is even more unsettling in its quavering fragility than the monster death metal voices. The atmosphere is cold and forbidding, and the orchestral synths which would be warm and soothing on other people's albums are instead ominous in the way they loop around the slow percussion, the vocals and the church organ. Familiar black / death metal thunder and Asthâghul's duelling black and death metal vocals, trading one batch of venom for another, return in the following track "Annobathysm" with swathes of cold synth drone and clean lone angel vocals in close pursuit. This track develops into a surprisingly beautiful song with a distinct dark alien atmosphere, haunting and cold and lonely, that also has a strong ritual feel with repeating folk melodies and clean-voiced chants.
With "Thürldaesu" and succeeding songs, the album continues building up depth and atmosphere in long songs of complex structures, far-ranging ambient synth drone melody, and multiple black, death and clean vocal styles, over a foundation of demented blast-beat percussion and a brutal raw instrumental rhythm section. The music often has a slightly queasy or tinny tone which probably comes from the folk acoustic stringed instruments (nyckelharpa and kantele) that appear on some of the melodies. The repetitive nature of the chanting and most melodies gives the music a catchy pop accessibility, and some tunes may be hard to get out of your head long after the album has finished!
I have to say that after the third song "Thürldaesu", the repetitive melodies and beats, and the equally repetitive chanting on tracks like "Pact" can start sounding like bloated overkill. The constant switching between the strangled black metal vocal, the guttural death metal and the clean cold-blooded killer angel vocal on all tracks may distract attention away from the music when the entire recording should be an overwhelming, immersive experience. At this point too, the one-dimensional effect of the tinny production on the music becomes much more noticeable and you start wondering whether Asthâghul is over-extending himself and not doing the Esoctrilihum project justice by handing the sound engineering and production duties over to someone else. The nyckelharpa and kantele melodies especially get swallowed up in the synth / guitar bombast and a better production would bring them out more, as indeed it would bring out all the other instruments and effects to achieve a multi-dimensional soundscape across the album. The later songs on the album would probably also sound less repetitive and overblown.
At about 77 minutes in length, "Funeral" is most definitely not for the faint of heart though it is perhaps Esoctrilihum's most musically accessible work to date. For those not familiar with Esoctrilihum, "Funeral" is not only easy to assimilate compared to earlier albums, it's also just as sonically diverse and adventurous, and as a result is a good introduction to this project. The clean vocals add another dimension of derangement to the music. I just think that perhaps at this stage of Esoctrilihum's development, a critical transition point may have been reached and from here on Asthâghul should consider whether the project is bigger than he can handle and if he is willing to give up some control over the music's sound and production.