Cuando la noche se pone en el horizonte a través del paisaje, la luna llena señala el comienzo de la ceremonia del fuego. Mientras el sol se hunde más en la neblina, el sonido de los fuertes vientos aúlla a lo lejos. Rayos majestuosos se elevan hacia el este, míralos incendiar las montañas. Recuerda este momento mientras sigue la oscuridad. Acompáñame en un trago durante el incendio y escucha las voces de esta tierra cuando llaman a las estrellas distantes. Dejar atrás las huellas como reflejo de nuestro viaje. Que solo los vientos borre nuestra huella pero que lleven nuestro nombre. Como la estrella que quema arriba, así quema nuestro espíritu para llevar adelante nuestra canción...
Crepusculo Negro is a label that I have been stalking for some years now, and one I am particularly fond of (as was evident in my last year’s list, including both Volahn and Arizmenda’s full-lengths), both due to the quality of its bands, as well as the existence of a unified artistic and spiritual concept among its members, solidified in the Black Twilight Circle. Though not much is clear about the content of this concept, one can be certain of a certain mythological fascination with pre-hispanic Central American civilizations (members appear to be of Mexican-American descend, and strongly influenced by the Mexican legends Xibalba), as the main person behind the Circle has stated. I am quite positive inclined towards black metal becoming occasionally an artistic medium for expression of minorities’ cultural needs, as is the case in this particular case. In contrast to last year’s rich production, in 2015 the label released only one new album, namely a 4-way split between Volahn, Shataan, Arizmenda and Kallathon, by the descriptive (and quite evocative) name of “Desert Dances & Serpent Sermons”, an album that effortlessly coils its way to the top positions of this year’s black metal production, among sand clouds and black wings. Volahn kick off the album with the eleven minute opus “Chamalcan”, whose intro and outro can very well disorient; surf-like reverb, a galloping reminiscent of spaghetti-western film music (it was quite a shock upon first listen), before the main part of the track kicks off in well-known (for Volahn fans at least) territory. This means multiple, thin guitar layers, overlapping in an almost ethereal way during the most exhilarating and mystical moments, remaining always in ecstatic motion, sometimes resembling long-winded solos. A comparison with the finest specimens of Les Legions Noires would not be amiss. With a slightly cleaner sound than in their previous releases, a thing suiting well the somewhat travelogue-ish nature of this song (it being a prime guide through the exotic desert concept nature of the release), Volahn once more live up to the high expectations. Shataan is one of the less well known BTC bands, with only a demo release, 2011’s “War Cry Lament”, to exhibit before this participation. In “Caminando Del Destino / Desert Smoke / Wells Run Dry” we are presented with a 3-part eleven minuter, which introduces us to some “Drawing Down The Moon-” jungle sonicscapes, traversed by a slightly epic acoustic guitar, before it rises itself to a somewhat dissonant, especially vocal-wise, middle part, which nevertheless manages to be highly addictive; the guitars, as in most of the BTC releases, are a feast for sore ears – in this particular occasion they are quite clear, serpentine in quickness of motion. The clean, somewhat punkish vocals may well be dissonant, but they have an innate sense of melody, especially on the last part, which manages to guide them triumphantly through the hazy landscape. All in all a song of mischievous and slightly ironic character, which builds up with time and with repetition.
Arizmenda may well be the darkest and rawest of the label/circle’s bands, a thing widely apparent in last year’s “Stillbirth In The Temple Of Venus”, which was a spectral descent to dungeon schizophrenia. The intro of “Ropeburn Mutilation On The Outskirts Of Life”, the band’s contribution to the split, works well towards supporting the aforementioned Arizmenda characteristic: a children choir performing a somewhat nursery song along slightly discernible chilling keyboards. In the track per se, all known Arizmenda elements can be discerned; ghastly drawn-out vocals, coming behind a hazy curtain of distance; tempo changes sliding from torturous mid-tempo with no apparent direction, to swirling torrential speeds, with guitar riffs (and even the hint of a solo) floating just above the surface of an all-consuming abyss. What differentiates this track from its predecessors is mostly the better production, as well as an essence of atmospheric phantasmagoria, which oddly brought to my mind early Limbonic Art. This may well be the most complex of the split’s four tracks, though it is slightly amiss as far as the conceptual cohesion with the other three is concerned – it is the most traditionally black metal one. Kallathon, as is also the case with Shataan, is one of the lesser known bands of the circle, boasting just one demo and 2 split releases. Their contribution to the release, “Falling Into The Horizon, Burning Into The Black Twilight” is the longest of the whole bunch, clocking something above 13 minutes. The quite large intro, brings the listener back to the sun-bleached cowboy lands of the first track, steadily building a path towards the main song, which is the most monolithic of the 4, both direction- and riff-wise (though it closes with a solo of excellent taste). Two main tempos pace back and forth, marching mid-tempo giving way to bursts of blastbeats and then resuming with much directness (not succumbing though to inertia). There is large scale echo use in the slightly growling vocals (more towards the clean end of the spectrum), which along with the marching rhythm grace the song with a somewhat epic hue. A worthy closing anthem. A non-conformist black metal release one could say, both musically (the surf/western parts can drive away black metal purists) and conceptually (as is evident from the somewhat alien to the scene aesthetics of Black Twilight Circle), it also happens to be one of the best albums that have surfaced from this year’s underground vaults. The closing lyrics of “Falling Into The Horizon, Burning Into The Black Twilight” are the most fitting closing line:
Leave the tracks behind as a reflection of our journey
Let only the winds erase our trace but,
let them carry our name
Like the star that burns above, so does our spirit to carry on our song
Launching out the door with a beautiful clean melody that sounds like it belongs in a spaghetti western, Volahn wastes absolutely no time setting the tone that the Black Twilight Circle wants to set with their newest collaborative effort: the Desert Dances & Serpent Sermons split tape between several of the stars of the indigenous-sounding Crepúsculo Negro label, which, for those that don’t know, is a Southern California based label that fronts Mexican-American black metal that tends to incorporate folk melodies into their heritage inspired music.
As this is a split between four bands, each song will be separately reviewed instead of focusing on the effort as a whole. The first one up is Volahn’s Chamalcan, which, again, opens with the clean spaghetti western bit; even as the song smoothly transitions into black metal, odd stylistic choices and unusually (for black metal) technical melodies fade back and forth between more traditional and atmospheric riffs, occasionally interrupted by tasteful soloing. Volahn’s vocals soar over everything, providing that extra bit of emotion that makes the track really come together. Finally, the track works its way back to the initial melody, slightly altered at the very end, to provide the completion that any great individual effort really needs. If this isn’t my new favorite Volahn track, it still stands up very well for itself, and has been an absolute pleasure to hear live the two times I’ve managed to catch Volahn this year so far.
Next up on split is Shataan, a Volahn/Morbundad/Shataan collaborative group and one of the least active CN artists, who play on this three songs merged into one; a folk inspired intro without any traces of black metal in it, and the two more metal tracks that justify the inclusion of the band onto a black metal collab. After the beautiful opener is finished, Shataan launches into an extremely ambitious piece that mixes a flute and clean vocals (along with what sounds like a harmonica? on the third part) with its black metal as fluently as most bands include their more traditional elements. Slower atmospheric parts compete with faster blasting ones and come together in a way that, while enjoyable, is to me the weakest part of the split; while I like the folk elements that the Black Twilight Circle loves to mix into their black metal, Shataan takes them too far for me, especially when partnered with Shataan’s passionate but not particularly good clean vocals.
Third comes Arizmenda, which, after a brief intro, launces straight into some of the most straight-played black metal on the entire split. Fast tremolo picked riffs vary between higher threshold melodic lines and lower parts that serve best as the backdrop to Arizmenda’s frenzied vocal assault, which is augmented by subtle and tasteful synths that act entirely as song enhancers and never attempt to stand on their own as musical elements. Halfway through, the track slows down a lot, getting more atmospheric and trancelike while Arizmenda continues to wail and finally closing with a beautiful instrumental section of melodic black metal before completely ending with one last shriek. Overall, this is my second favorite song on the split behind Volahn’s track.
Finally, Kallathon’s track comes on, and, in line with the rest of the split, opens with another intro bit, this one made up of ever-so-slightly-distorted bouncing around within a couple of chord shapes before shifting to Kallathon’s clean vocals humming over clean guitarwork, and then moving on into the meat of the track: slow, epic-feeling black metal that slowly trades in extreme melody for a more traditional black metal assault, though the melody never completely vanishes. Fast drumming- presumably provided by Volahn, who has historically been Kallathon’s drummer- augments the song throughout. While the track starts off a bit weaker than I’d prefer as a standalone (though it’d work well as the first song in a longer effort), it quickly moves into territory that I really enjoy and does a fine job of closing up this most recent Crepúsculo Negro split.
As a whole, this tape is well worth getting, though it’s brought down somewhat by the less-enjoyable Shataan track and by the momentum-breaking intros that drag on too long for both Shataan and Kallathon in between tracks; perhaps if the track ordering was different it’d work a bit better (such as placing the faster moving Arizmenda after another band on the second half of the tape rather than starting it), but as-is, those remain my largest complaints.
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