Spiritus Locus

Over fifteen years ago this release saw the light of day and according to the Metal Archives it would be the second out of three by this band. Black metal is offered, a famous genre among one man bands, and on five compositions Lemegethon want to prove their quality in musicianship.

The band’s name refers to the The Lesser Key of Solomon or Clavicula Salomonis and Wikipedia has the following to say:
The Lesser Key of Solomon contains detailed descriptions of spirits and the conjurations needed to invoke and oblige them to do the will of the conjurer (referred to as the "exorcist"). It details the protective signs and rituals to be performed, the actions necessary to prevent the spirits from gaining control the preparations prior to the invocations, and instructions on how to make the necessary instruments for the execution of these rituals.

So, the question arouses, whether the band actually uses parts of these elements into their music and if they would provide the listener with somehow uncommonly facets. Indeed, there are chants in the background and weird keyboard motives (Dethronement of Light) for instance, beyond this Lemegethon sticks to raw and noisy black metal. Deifyer of Morbidity, the person behind this band, uses a good deal of distortion for the vocals and accordingly have they some resemblance to the performance of Xasthur's Malefic. There is the problem that he overdoes it at times and it might get slightly annoying, but these are rather rare occasions; the use of other vocal types further distracts the attention from the noisy ones.

The music is excessively raw and comes generally in a quite aggressive way. Beyond the blasts not much is to be found here and even though slower interludes are used, they appear on a rather small scale and the largest impression on the listener in terms of the style is created by the former mentioned facet. With this comes an exceedingly large amount of repetition and minimalism, not only in terms of the endless pondering of the snare but also in the minimalist play by the guitars. With a sound typical for releases from the underground, the latter instrument reaches occasionally from some weirdness in terms of the motives and structures and from with the vocals a noisy alliance. Yet, this is fine, even though the aspect that the fascination is limited to some spins and in the long run rather some kind of boredom will likely become a dominating factor.

It is hard to say whether a better production might have helped the music or not. Its noisiness together with a good deal of aggressiveness creates a unity which is certainly fascinating and also enjoyable. With some polishing certain aspects would be lost in this process and the gain in accessibility would come on the expensive of the atmosphere. Lemegethon's Spiritus Locus is not for everyone, but to fans of the underground scene a recommendation can be given. It would be nice to see a cover version of the songs with a more balanced not necessarily cleaner production.

Similarities: Enbilulugugal to name one extreme example from the underground.