Urfaust

I dislike the word "evil" when describing metal. It's overused and really doesn't say anything. "Evil" has been used for music as esoteric as Ride for Revenge, as self-aware as early Mayhem, as sexual as Abigail, and as capital-c Catholic as Black Sabbath's self-titled song.

So when I say that SVEST's Urfaust is one of the most evil black metal albums out there, I mean that fully.

Urfaust sounds like a whirlwind; the sonic equivalent to John Martin's painting Satan Arousing the Fallen Angels for Milton's Paradise Lost. The album is extremely lo-fi - to the extent that those unused to this kind of production have dismissed it as underwhelming noise in comparison to the fairly mid-fi split with Deathspell Omega. But there's a point here: SVEST is the closest to a "psychedelic" influence in black metal not in the sense of drug-induced, but in total sensory subjugation, with guitar leads and melodies very clearly laid out under the mix. The extraordinarily harsh production is not for masochism or pious inaccessibility, but for a sonic depiction of this level of fire.

Speaking of DsO - while that band gets most of the attention in French and "orthodox" black metal for their allegorical lyrics on philosophy and theistic Satanism, SVEST also has remarkable lyrics that address the relationship between man and the pursuit of both knowledge and life, eventually coming to the conclusion (throughout this LP and the EP) that the dogma of the Christian God shackles man from the very existence he was created to experience. While one can debate the theological details, at the very least SVEST ranks up there with some of the more well-constructed lyrics that deal with Satanism as opposed to the "Christ bad / Satan good!" schlock that felt up the glut of norsecore in the late 90s and early 00s. (DsO included - by this point, they were only up to Inquisitors of Satan, which is very much more-of-the-usual in Satan-themed black metal).

If you're both willing and able to appreciate the mix as a benefit to the music, you'll hear some incredibly proficient rhythm guitar leads, especially in the "chorus" of the first track "Putréfiance Rédemptrice" and the oscillating progression on "Nuit de Walpurgis". The whirlwind metaphor comes to mind again, as both the production and the speed of the guitars feel like they're pushing back and forth and channeling through rapid-fire guitars rather than aimless madness. It's a very controlled sense of production in which SVEST wasn't choosing this form of fidelity for kvlt status or because they didn't know better - but because that level of madness truly benefits the message of the music in a way something clean would neuter.

I love this album. At first I didn't know what to think about it given the mix, but after several years it is now one of my most-listened albums in my music library, 18-minute tracks be damned.

Originally posted to RateYourMusic. Edited for Metal Archives.