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Rhinocervs > RH-12 > Reviews
Rhinocervs - RH-12

A masterpiece from mist - 98%

MutantClannfear, December 12th, 2014
Written based on this version: 2012, Cassette, Rhinocervs (Limited edition)

Do you still need more reasons to spend $200 over the course of a year hunting down every release this label has made? (Or is that just me?) Well, you've found one. Certainly, at this point, you've noticed at least one of the occasions on which I've randomly interrupted conversations between parent and child, the moribund, the grieving, purely to talk about how this label is (was?) the hottest thing since the sliced wheel. This just hammers in the point: while Rhinocervs has released a pretty substantial handful of excellent stuff, I'm reasonably sure that RH-12 represents the absolute best their untitled catalog has to offer. I'm not quite as familiar with the two most recent tapes, but RH-15 is soundtrack ambient and RH-16 probably has more songs on it than copies in existence, so let's say that for all intents and purposes, out of the Rhinocervs releases that we can consider to be worth caring about, RH-12 is the best.

As with most of the label's releases, this is black metal where musical comparisons come few and far between. RH-12's three lengthy songs are easier to describe in terms of themselves, without any outside comparisons. To start out, this is fuzzy. It seems like a silly place to start out when describing music, but seriously, this release is like the Chia Pet of black metal. Austin Delgadillo's vocals, which are usually a bit less buried on Rhinocervs releases, are hushed and distorted here, more like a distant screech than the proud and triumphant yell that can be found on some of the other tapes. Almost as if it's in a constant state of dissolution, the fragile-sounding guitar tone crackles around the melodies, cradling them in very pleasant, soothing white noise that I'd normally think to associate with a DSBM band. But DSBM this certainly isn't, at least not in any traditional or immediate sense: it's much heavier, vaster, more momentous and more infectious than just about any depressive black metal I've heard.

If you wanted to choose a single adjective to describe the mood here, "cosmic" might fit, but it'd still be pretty far off. This is a very spacy release, and in that regard it's rather superficially similar to Darkspace and their contemporaries; but whereas Darkspace aim for dread and horror, Rhinocervs's RH-12 takes a more shimmering and awe-inspired approach. Beautiful waves of precariously-arranged guitar chords scrape through the static, spiralling through the upper registers in a manner that's slow and patient but simultaneously energetic and momentous. Though none of the untitled Rhinocervs releases have artist credits, I'd be willing to bet that this particular Rhinocervs release was composed by Odz Manouk's Devon Boutelle, as it bears his signature penchant for forming genius harmonies out of two totally separate guitars. Perhaps the perfect example of this is at the three-minute mark of the first track (and later at 5:45), when the guitars create two separate riffs that unite to form a mournful, almost fairy tale-like riff that dances around like a somnambulist traipse. The music takes on a dazed and dreamy atmosphere without becoming overwhelming, and when the two guitars finally do agree on a single riff, it becomes all the more forceful as a result.

The songwriting here is absolutely genius, as well. The first song has a relatively strange structure in that there are only a couple of stanzas of vocals, in the last two minutes of its running time, with the rest of the time being devoted to shrill, cold, but dazzling black metal, with a lengthy break into some minimalistic reverb-doused clean guitar work. By the time the song returns to its black metal base in the last couple of minutes, it truly feels like a satisfying journey has been completed. The second track is less outright slow, with movement kept by a more brisk and urgent rocking beat, and ends up feeling something like a very, very drowsy Burzum. The riffwork is still of the hazy, finding-aim-in-aimlessness type, but with the tempo change, it feels a bit more upbeat and perhaps even somewhat catchy. The highlight of this song, for me, would be the beautiful swaying and drifting lead passage that pops up a couple of times, the first at 1:35. Also of particular note is the outro riff, which seems to bundle up all of the song's previous energy and release it in a fuzzy, energetic, uplifting riff that leads the song to a fade-out. I like the third song just a smidgen less than the first two, but make no mistake, it's still downright amazing. The music takes on a more melancholic and lachrymose vibe than the previous tracks, but still maintains the presence and gravitas. The lead work on this track is nice, especially the floaty bit that starts in around 3:10, but my favorite part of this track is when the pace shifts as the drum machine switches to a blast beat (the only one to be found on this release) and starts pulling out heavy, chord-based riffs that can really throw their weight around. I suppose this is the closest this release gets to really sounding like Darkspace, with the extremely active tremolo riffs all swimming through a pool of blasts and static, though it's still much more vibrant and bright than I'd ever attribute to them - or any band but Rhinocervs, for that matter.

The picture which RH-12 paints as a whole is hard to pin, partially because of the lack of knowledge of artist intent and partially because it's so good at what it does that it could apply to almost anything. Is it the sound of walking through a blizzard, seeking shelter? Is it the sound of floating in space? The sound of drowning, dreaming, dying? It's an open question, but one thing is for certain: that this release is one of the most immense and potent atmospheric black metal albums to ever exist. Rhinocervs has tapped into some pretty good ideas on several occasions, but this one in particular is on a completely different scale: it's abstract, beautiful, captivating, and completely memorable. An essential listen for anybody who's so much as read the words "black metal" at any point in their life.

Noisy malevolent black metal ambient psychedelia - 87%

NausikaDalazBlindaz, July 17th, 2013

From the people who gave us RH-11, which I've reviewed elsewhere on MA, comes ... RH-12, another demo tape of dense black metal psychedelia, this time with more pronounced noise and minimalist tendencies. Keyboards are used much more to create a feeling of desolation and bleakness. Even the guitars sometimes have a plaintive urban-blues tone. The music has its clear moments which contrast with and accentuate the more buzzy, noisy guitar-cloud passages when they return. Vocals tend to be very dry, death-rattle keenings and are quite grisly, as if the vocalist were some crazed zombie with a rabid fever. Percussion is either completely absent or pushed so far back into the mix that it registers very faintly and is more sensed than heard.

There are three unnamed tracks of more or less equal length with the entire release clocking in at a comfortable single-session 23 minutes. There really isn't that much difference among the three pieces in style, speed or mood and there's only the briefest of pauses in-between. One highlight in the work comes in the second minute of the second movement in which tremolo noise guitar is allowed to buzz and thrum away with no accompaniment at all for a number of minutes; the urgent energy in the track is strong. Later in the track a high-pitched melodic guitar is allowed to play over the runaway noise rhythm while a sandpaper-raspy vocal carries on over the burning music. Just as strong as track 2 is track 3 which features quite a lot of melodic lead guitar trillings running and tripping over the constant noise buzz and some really horrific vocals, reminiscent of Njiqahdda's early vocal work but very menacing as well. The addition of reverb adds a deranged aspect to the music as it grows more intense and maddened, the guitars speeding up and being shredded faster than a flock of birds can fly into wind turbines, the voices turning more bestial in their growls and slavering roars.

This tape really is something to hear if your taste in black metal runs to very dense and trance-like blackened psychedelic music dipped in evil and the notion of an uncaring and even malevolent cosmos, in which life on Earth appeared by pure accident and its appearance roused the most demonic forces to action in the universe to obliterate life and restore the natural balanc