Beats and yelling: Sacrilegious Crown

Observances of the Apophatic Ordeal
Out 28^th April, self-released

Cathedralist black metal at the intersection of funeral doom, Italy’s Sacrilegious Crown carry the flame lit by Elysian Blaze, and to a lesser extent Les Legions Noire, into a newer, more melodically focused era. Atmosphere is still the dominant ethos, but here it takes on an antagonistic poise toward the flow of the music, injecting some much needed conflict and tension to a form of ambient/extreme metal liable to sink into passive textural administration.

Percussion remains loyal to the articulation of funereal processions, threatening in their persistence despite the depressed tempos. That being said, at times they conspire with the guitars to offer staccato punches of blunt violence – as in the intro to ‘Obsservanza III – Exceed the Subterranean Wombs’ – to offer welcome deviations from a genre norm. Although simple, this proves to be a more engaging way to develop into linear blasts of fluid tremolo riffing than a constant fuzz of reverb.

Guitars themselves swing from droning funeral doom fare to more traditional black metal currents, haunting in their flirtation with dissonance supplementing traditional minor key gloom. Simple harmonic material works to build contrast, suggesting brighter tones before succumbing to the dominance of descending chord sequences into drab, disordered static. That, combined with some basic but thoughtful developmental material serves to elevate the riff dimension of this music, which in turn brings the entire substrata to life, giving the sparse, eerie emptiness of the atmosphere greater weight as it lingers like a mist over this substantive material.

Vocals stick with inhuman howls of despair, but emotion is kept relatively restrained, avoiding the gauche hysteria depressive black metal is wont to succumb to. The mood here, although fraught with morbidity, offers more of a constructive acceptance of the void. This is aided by the relatively restrained dark ambient passages and surrounding textural ephemera, evoking size through minimalism as opposed to lavish orchestration.

Traditional metal technique is foregrounded, providing the basis for simpler yet more effective soundscaping through the use of silence, drone, noise, and distant clean chants. All of which are presented here with far more austerity than many of Sacrilegious Crown’s peers, but the lasting impression is far more impactful for the fact.

It all sounds terribly obvious when spelled out in this manner. Nothing on this album is particularly revolutionary. The technique and theory behind it are route-one, borderline rudimentary. But in the context of a style that trades so explicitly in mood, the addition of even the simplest compositional technique carries greater currency, enhancing the overall experience thanks to the amount of space and influence they are able to leverage across an entire piece.

This album could, in this context, be considered a triumph of arrangement as much as it is of performance or composition. Each element completements or contrasts with its surroundings with enhanced efficacy. But the rawness of the experience, the evocation of cavernous, black, monolithic structures, of liminal dread, and irredeemable nihilism, all is complimented by modestly creative riff development. All is stripped back, but active enough to give the music a sense of purpose, meaning, and ultimately staying power.