Known for its adherence to strict rules (lo-fi production, blast beats, tremolo guitar picking, tortured vocals and nihilistic lyrical content), black metal has increasingly found itself in an internal debate as more and more artists expand their sound outside of the narrow confines of the genre to incorporating ambient, doom, sludge, stoner, prog, post-rock, and even pop into their sound. Artists like Xasthur have chosen to turn their back on the genre entirely, announcing last month that his newest album would be his last black metal release, while others are simply expanding on the black metal template and trusting that fans will embrace their experiments in sound.
While some purist have screamed foul, to put it nicely, there is a whole other contingent of open minded fans of black metal, of which I'll count myself a part of. Sure, maybe we don't take to message boards and defend Xasthur like we should (because we do have lives), but we buy his albums, support his musical decisions, and are in awe of his work, whether it is his first blasted album, or his last dark atmospheric collaboration with Marissa Nadler. So while some purists may hate the evolution of seasoned black metal artists, fans of extreme boundary pushing music have had a lot to be thankful for.
In the midst of this ridiculously insular and contentious environment, Twilight has returned with their second groundbreaking album "Monument To Time End." Twilight emerged in 2005 as a sort of United States Black Metal supergroup at the height of the USBM movement. Comprised of such scene luminaries as Malefic (Xasthur), Wrest (Leviathan), Imperial (Krieg) and Blake Judd (Nachtmystium), the band's debut pushed the boundaries of black metal, by combining thrash with black metal in the manner of Immortal, but it still remained firmly entrenched within the confines of each artists' respective sound. After a fallout with Southern Lord label head, and one half of Sunn 0))), Greg Anderson, Xasthur quit the band. In his stead now is Aaron Turner of Isis fame, also along for the ride is Sanford Parker (Minsk), Stavros Giannopolous (Atlas Moth) and Rob Lowe (Lichens). Together they have produced one of the most complex and mind blowing metal releases in years. After listening to "Monument to Time End," it really doesn't matter about any of the absurd internal politics in the black metal scene. The fact is that the crossbreeding of black metal with so many other heavy influences has finally produced its own "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas." Yes, this album is that good.
The album explodes with "The Cryptic Ascension," a massively heavy track that owes more to Turner's Isis and Nachtmystium's new experiments in sound, than any black metal. If it weren't for Imperial's screeched vocals there would be nothing initially to denote this as anything even remotely related to black metal. To top it off, Lowe's haunting vocals lift the song towards a nearly transcendental realm before Wrest flexes his muscle with an incredible blast beat workout and the guitars turn from spacious chords to that traditional "Burzum buzz" of tremelo picked guitar. "Fall Behind Eternity" follows and begins with simple doom/post-rock inflected guitar, while Wrest's drums build the song slowly before it expands into a killer amalgom of blast beats/war drums and thunderous guitar riffs. Yet even here, on a more traditionally black metal number, there are so many complex spiderweb intricacies to be uncovered that the song rewards many repeat listens even before the post-metal breakdown toward the end. "8000 Years" and "Red Fields" continue the band's amazing run to comprise the most consistently superb first side of any album, metal or not, in recent history. Each song combines variant strains of metal, particularly Neurosis inspired post-metal, with blackened elements. The songs are not only intensely heavy, but are surprisingly, dare I say, oddly beautiful at times. There is something powerfully uplifting about these tracks, regardless of their dark origin. They sound like victory after immense struggle.
The album's second half kicks off with a blizzard of grimness. "Convulsions in Wells of Fever" and "Decaying Observer" both follow a traditional black metal template, but both are coated with a sheen of atmospheric guitars and a spacious production that allows each of the musician's talents, of which there are plenty, to shine through. Both pieces illuminate the basic differences in approach by Twilight from traditional black metal artists. Whereas most "true kvlt" black metal is steeped in lo-fi production, Sanford Parker's production on "Monument to Time End" is anything but. There is an expansiveness and crispness to these tracks that may turn off the purists, but when you have a band with as many talented musicians as Twilight, it would be a travesty to drown their contributions in garbage can production.
The band closes things out with "Negative Signal Omeg," a doom dirge that juxtaposes Imperial's mighty screech against lo-end effects and vocal harmonies, as mournful guitars boil under the surface. As with any track here, the song benefits from close inspection, revealing small flourishes that sets Twilight's work apart, making them wholly unique from any other metal project out there. Simply put this is the most powerful, most heavy and most perfectly executed metal album so far this year. For fans of such divergent acts as Mastodon and Burzum there is easily a lot to love in this modern metal classic.
"8,000 Years"
"Red Fields"
"Convulsions in Wells of Fever"
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