Album: Sepulchral Blessing
Artist: CLAVICVLA
Label: Cyclic Law
Catalogue no: 144th Cycle
Tracklist:
1. Demonic
Integration
2. Insorcist
Will
3. Tiamat
Skin
4. Angra
Mainyu
5. Apocryphal
Truth
6. Sepulchral
Blessing
Without fear of
exaggeration on my part, I can honestly say that ever since I returned to
reviewing I’ve been very impressed with the quality and consistency of Fredric
Arbour’s Cyclic Law label. Arbour, it appears, has a unique ability to zone in
on industrial ambient acts that offer such music that goes beyond the normal
run of the mill. And this latest release from Italy’s CLAVICVLA, available to
pre-order now on the label website and Bandcamp (see links below), digs deeply
into a wellspring of unwholesome inspiration and returns with some black
ambient that truly uncovers the darkness dwelling in the hearts of both the
world and mankind. The archaeology of civilisation has unearthed the ugly truth
of humanity, and the earth has also yielded the monsters that once walked upon
its surface – somehow, one feels there’s a link there, fanciful perhaps, but
from what did we inherit our DNA in the first place?
‘Demonic Integration’
opens the account, and brings forth deep drones lifted from the very bowels of
the earth, perhaps creatures or entities excavated from the musty pages of
age-old grimoires, conjured by those who wish only the return of unmanifest
chaos and darkness. Seismic rumbles and quakes accompany the arrival of
archetypes made real, as howlings torn from the deeps swirl in sympathy at the
disruption of nature. ‘Insorcist Will’, growls and mutters from within the
darkness of the Evocation Chamber, as forms materialise out of the base matter
of blood, mutilated sacrificial flesh, crushed bone, and impure motivations,
and are given life by the essences of rare incenses. It is here that the pitch
black takes on movement, barely seen or heard but keenly felt, as sharp and
acridly pungent as the charnel house.
And perhaps what has been
manifested is a creature from legend, the personification of primordial chaos,
a beast of fearsome reputation, Tiamat herself. In ‘Tiamat Skin’ we come face
to face with her, a terrifying apparition scaled in impenetrable hide,
impervious to the weapons of man, immune to the entreaties of mere humans, and
for whom mercy is a weakness. She is chaos incarnate, an agent of subversion,
and destruction. The world crumbles as she wreaks havoc, laying low the mighty
and lowly simultaneously, caring not for the light, only the darkness. Her
growls and snarls shake the very foundations of the reality we have built
around ourselves. Moreover, it means nothing to her.
Accompanying her is
‘Angra Mainyu’, the Zororastrian (Persian) spirit of utter destruction, the
principle of carnage and extermination, whose home is night and maleficence,
and whose polar opposite is day and enlightenment. Rumbles and growls, deep
subterranean drones, and voices tinged with evil and antipathy, roil and coil
around each other, combining their strengths and their malice and resentment.
‘Apocryphal Truth’ perhaps alludes to the real truth behind reality in general,
and humanity in particular, as it is our base natures that define us after all
– a fact that many are only too willing to shy away from. We are not, perhaps,
creatures of light struggling to better ourselves or to ascend to our true
spiritual place, but instead we are forever destined to remain mired in matter
and material evil. That’s the lie that’s been told to us ever since we achieved
self-consciousness, and this is the ugly truth being revealed.
‘Sepulchral Blessings’
is, figuratively and literally, the end of our journey. Figuratively, because
it signals that death has embraced us and taken us into the folds of its
voluminous robes, and that it has released us from the pain and fear of
untimely destruction, and literally, because this is the last track on the
album, a summation of all that has gone on before. It begins quietly enough, with
an empty place where we seem to be floating, no longer engaged in the cares and
concerns of life: over time it transforms, the seeming peace metamorphosing
into a less salubrious state, one where the stirrings of an unhallowed
existence begin to allow themselves to be felt and heard. Sheets of turbulent nuclear
static, the stuff of the stars themselves, searingly hot and ever-moving, tear
and rend without cease. This is the nightmare of humanity, the place we have
called Hades, Sheol, Hell, or any number of other names in our history, but it
is far more terrible than anything we could have imagined. This is our ultimate destiny, the destination we were always meant
to go to from the very beginning.
This is a mighty debut,
if debut it is – a thoroughly dark, miserable, and pitch black set of hymns to
the baser nature of the universe, of all who reside in it, and the reality in
which we find ourselves. It couldn’t be blacker if it tried – perhaps it would
be better if we called it, to coin a phrase, ‘Blacker than Black’. Black is the
absence of light – this is the absence
of everything. This is an infinite
void, completely devoid of light, hope, or a shred of matter; an abyss that, if
it stared back at you, would mean instant annihilation.
Available in three
versions: CD (500 copies), 12” black vinyl (300 copies), and digital download.
Pre-order your copy from:
or:
Psymon Marshall 2019.
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