Cosmicism

Since I recently wrote about Sulphur Aeon, I thought it would be interesting to review another band that has taken on Lovecraftian themes from a different musical angle. If Sulphur Aeon offer a rather blunt, roaring, ripping vortex of brutality, The Great Old Ones take on a more ethereal musical approach.

I quite liked Cosmicism when it was released. I hadn't heard The Great Old Ones before this release and I still haven't checked out their other releases. This is probably because the album hasn't really grown on me. I am not a regular fan of post-black metal. To my taste, this style of black metal usually feels like it is dripping with sentimentality paired with a serious lack of gravity. Music that lacks a sturdy center can be interesting, but it usually requires a certain kind of atmosphere for me to find it appealing.

In the case of Cosmicism, this is a mixed bag. On the positive side, The Great Old Ones certainly avoid sounding like other Coldplay black metal bands, rather finding themselves on the sinister side of the spectrum. The album even opens with a short instrumental piece that ever so slightly reminds me of the intro to Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk. But the following 6 excessively proggy tracks have very little to do with Emperor. If anything, they could be seen as Opeth-ian takes on black metal, particularly if you listen to "Of Dementia", which is also notable because of its Batushka reminiscent, Orthodox sermon infused chants.

Still, the meandering, anonymous quality of much post black metal is present here, although it doesn't fall into the regular cliches. The biggest problem is rather that a couple of songs don't really go anywhere, despite a track like "Lost Carcosa" displaying some really nice guitar work throughout the closing couple of minutes.

The best songs are stacked toward the second half of the album, with "A Thousand Young" settling into a nice gallop and tasty guitar solos, and "Dreams of the Nuclear Chaos" serving a horror infused main riff as the basis of the song, while also being the one song showcasing the most those tremolo picked reverb drenched treble lines so typical to post-black metal.

Ultra heavy closing track "Nayrlathotep" manages to pull the whole thing back to the bottom of the Mariana Trench and makes me think that whatever The Great Old Ones do next, adding a bit more overall weight to the songwriting could probably help create something very tasty and horrific in the best possible sense of the word. Cosmicism does feel a bit too weightless to my taste, even though it is a befitting aspect considering the title of the album.