O Nada no Caos Infinito

As black metal nears its fourth decade of existence, it's difficult to be competitive without completely flying off the handle and going sharply avant-garde. In order to remain relevant, you have to be one of those bands that blocks out the rest of existence and digs deep into their souls for material that has impact. Xerión is one of those bands, with a very extensive discography they continue to bravely barrel through the age of excessive information, with their brooding tunes of folklore that are as evil yet devilishly eloquent as their otherworldly spider web logo suggests. Although surprisingly still consistent, they seem to be losing a little bit of steam.

I suppose it's bad form to compare an album to previous releases before you've even heard it, because it could mess with appreciating as its own entity, but I really wanted it to be as good as "Nocturnal Misantropia," and it kind of isn't. Although the last four tracks after the centerpiece "Caos" are close enough, using a similar kind of mellifluous-yet-dissonant way of composing melodies and chord patterns, the rest of the album is comparatively lackluster. It's almost like they didn't have half of the album prepared before going into the studio and they just came up with some cool Dissection-y riffs on the spot. And what is going on with the vocalist? He sounds like someone's grandfather struggling to get out of a recliner. I have nothing more to add to that sentiment. What the hell?

Speaking of the track "Caos," it's definitely the best moment on the album. An extremely eerie five minute organ piece, it sounds epic enough to have been a long lost missing piece of Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor," it builds and releases tension rapidly, almost seeming to mock the comforting nature of delicate organ compositions. It has a vibe to it that can only be described as a sacred piece someone was commissioned to write in the Baroque that was secretly an ode to the fallen angel, or some obscure and twisted occult deity forgotten by time.

Despite not having to rely on any modern black metal tricks, some of the moments are subtly jazzy, like the intro to "Do Insondável e Abismal Empíreo," but jazzy in more of a King Crimson kind of way, rather than an Imperial Triumphant kind of way, and with a very gaunt and deathlike melancholia that only Xerión can accomplish when toying around with big boy chords and scales. I'm sure the two halves of the album being incongruent was deliberate, but it leaves me wishing that this release was just an EP that started with "Caos." Maybe they were just trying to ward off impatient fucks like me who like to jump the gun and start listening for similarities to the shining moments in their discography right off the bat.

Either way, kudos to Xerión for continuing to release good music, and being a tiny capillary that is still supplying blood flow to a genre that is dangerously close to needing life support. Exotic, otherworldly and of course quite evil, Xerión are champions of their craft, and I hope their vocalist eventually got out of that recliner without shitting his pants.