Dogman

Five years after the ridiculously wild and intense Bathory-worshipping ripper that was Demoniac Pride, Rudolf the Proud somehow found a way to make black metal even more wild and insane. This is no small feat, considering the man and his band were already more insane than he looked, and he appears shirtless and wild-eyed clad in a leather jacket and handlebar moustache on the cover of this tape.

I've never met the guy, but I'm a huge fan of the band and have heard tales of him. A complete maniac - both as a compliment to a black metaller and a literal description. A nihilistic alcoholic gravedigger, perpetually swigging from a bottle of cachaça all day, who spoke of how he wanted to die of cirrhosis. The insanity of his music was clearly no veil, rather his reality. You can hear the torments and misery of alcoholism tearing away at his sanity through his music, through the wild shrieks and guitar ripping. He is of the most morbidly appropriate occupation, too. This also explains the inconsistent lengths of Sovereign albums, conceived through nocturnal fits of symbolic lycanthropy, sometimes long enough to fill an LP, sometimes not. Similar themes and parts, even whole songs are revisited, becoming more vidid with each recollection. For some, black metal is an escape. For Rudolf the Proud, perhaps it is, but it is also a release of his embodiment.

It is with awe that I say his music became even more wild with this release. The guitar riff-leads have taken over the music in part, they're all over the place! The hot and intense guitar tone that kicked off Dimension of Torment is all over the place on this one, the drum machine relegated to the back, and wild shredding sets the tone immediately. The album is soaked in uncontrolled fervor, enough to make you sweat uncomfortably if you get really into it.

There is an odd discrepancy between versions, though. Both versions share the five core tracks, recorded in 2007. The tape version reuses three tracks from Dimension of Torment. The LP omits the old tracks and includes four more tracks recorded in 2008. These include a swelling emotional intro and outro which really shape the album, and two standout tracks at the end - "The Hitcher" and "Voices in My Mind." The version with these new tracks is absolutely superior.

I know I said the guitar leads took over the music, but there are two signatures of Sovereign, the other being the sorrowful and tense melodies which were first laid out in "Death" off of Disgrace Command - a song whose themes are revisited again and appear in "Dogman I." The original "Dogman" is reworked from the first LP, too, under the name "Dogman II" - this time even more frantic, like an uncontrollable bout of lycanthropy. The over-the-top guitar leads and wolf howls intensify the feelings of the song, it is incredible. Other songs like "Rum and Beer" manage a mournful and emotional take on something Bathory-esque, something I thought impossible, but it is a passionate reflection on some of the prides and pains of alcoholism.

The two tracks added to the LP version are the best, true standouts on a great album. "The Hitcher" has a lot of high-pitched, tense speed metal riffing. It is extremely energetic and unsettling, especially as it intensifies into Rudolf's ferocious leads. These moonstruck lupine leads completely take over with "Voices in My Mind" - his most unhinged and emotional song yet. The frantic anxieties of the downside of alcoholism flow through his guitar on this song. The building intensity on these two songs pushes towards the apex of Sovereign, and ultimately the demise. It can only get so much crazier before it becomes unsustainable.

The emotional closer, "Solitude in Storm," makes a lamentful contrast to these upbeat tracks. A soft song with clean guitars and weeping leads shows the other side of the alcoholic insanity - mournful lament and loneliness. Along with the intro, these two additions to the LP version show that there is more to the experience than just chaos and maelstrom. The addition of these tracks, recorded later, is somewhat a precursor of the band's eventual disbandment, but not before a few more EPs and one song that puts it all together.

Dogman is one of black metal's finest albums, and the craziest album from Brazil in decades. See if you can handle it.