Saopth's

Releasing eight albums and three EPs in six years is a major achievement in itself for a solo music project, especially one as singular and idiosyncratic in its vision and style as Esoctrilihum, and so perhaps it's a relief to discover that Album No 8, "Saopth", coming out in the same year as Album No 7 ("Consecration of the Spiritus Flesh"), is as streamlined musically as its predecessor although in a different direction: where "Consecration …" is in blackened death metal territory, "Saopth" is a more atmospheric BM work heading towards symphonic / dungeon synth. The act's more avantgarde side is still in evidence though perhaps in ways more subtle than previously, in its use of keyboards in creating mood and atmosphere, and in some of the song structures and the guitar riffs. While the vocals are as harsh, theatrical and bombastic as ever, the percussion as punishing as it has always been and the acidic guitars always corrosive, as the album progresses there come moments where the mood is definitely melancholy and deeply sad.

Opening track "Hkl'rf" brings us the Esoctrilihum I've come to know and love – the crazed singing, the pounding nail-gun drumming going full-tilt jackhammer insane and the dense and demented nature of the songs – but the project's style now seems a bit more spacious and a bit easier on the ear and brain to assimilate. The demonic vocals chant furiously throughout the song as strangely mediaeval-sounding brassy melodies come to the fore. A dark cavernous space looms behind the music and a strong and uneasy feeling arises that we've been dropped into a monastery run by monks secretly dedicated to the worship of Satan and his hierarchy of demons – and we can't leave until we've been initiated into the monks' deranged cult down in the deep underground catacombs.

The fusion of savage BM violence and equally uncompromising mediaeval dungeon synth continues in "O'thog", the intense derangement building up steadily and inexorably, with rugged riffs, blaring synth and a choir of monster choristers hell-bent on shouting into your ears. The repetition of organ and other keyboard melodies adds a heavy melancholy to the music in spite of the exultant chanting. An epic majesty, grim and evil yet fascinating and hard to ignore in its scale and complexity continues to build in even more monumental tracks like "Sitltan", which has its moments of sheer insane frenzy and anguished horror, and "Furfhuth", notable for its shrill, almost hysterical synth drone blasts amongst the monster ravings. Just as you think the music couldn't be any more extreme in the demented direction it's going in, the title track takes you even deeper in its strange hell of arch-sounding brassy Mediaevalism, steeped in its own decadence as the ritual chanting becomes more insane and urgent.

The music may not be quite as varied as on previous albums and the relentlessly intense and confrontational fury can even get a bit tiresome, especially in the last track which is hardly different from the rest of the album in its aggression and madness. There are moments where the repetitive music really could do with some editing for length. The choir of demons exult in our suffering as they chant and churn through their dense litanies but that is all they really do. When the album ends, it's with an impression of simply running out of steam and ideas, and not because the rituals have actually concluded with us having become fully transformed demonic members of a choir that will never let us go.

Even so, "Saopth's" presents us with a slightly more (though no less evil and insane) accessible Esoctrilihum, and one also where the malevolence and insanity are tempered with a desperately sad and wretched mood. The savage and unrelenting brutality is matched by an unexpected beauty, dark though it is, in the music.