What is it about the subterranean sludge of the most primitive black metal that is so appealing? I have acknowledge that probably 99.999% of the world’s population finds it considerably less than appealing, even shocking, scarifying and offensive but the remaining .001%, which includes me, loves it to bits.
“The Awakening to the Unknown Perception of Evil”, the opening track of Xasthur’s “The Funeral of Being”, gives you fair warning of what’s ahead. The basement sound with washed out drums, too-distorted guitars bouncing off the walls and colliding with the smothered bass, howled vocal raspings swept in to the mix and all recorded on the cheapest, tinniest cassette recorder with an auto level control that blats out from the first slicing chord, it sounds just like many garage rehearsals I’ve walked past in my long life. But none sounded as good as this. If they had, I would have stopped, listened and maybe knocked – no, pounded – on the garage door begging admittance.
I have friends who get violent when they know this type of stuff even exists. I have to be careful who I talk about it with. For me it’s totally sublime and I know why. It might sound egg-headed but I know what “postmodern” means while many others don’t. I also happen to like postmodernism in music and art and nearly everyone else seems not to, probably because they don’t know what it means. Xasthur is postmodernism par excellence. You’ll agree, I’m sure.
My first postmodern musical experience was Can. I’ve written about them elsewhere in these pages so I won’t bang on endlessly. In short, Can took rock music, deconstructed it and reassembled the essential bits – relentless rhythm, throbbing bass, spidery guitar, spacey keys and indecipherable vocals – in new ways that bore little resemblance to other rock music of the Seventies but rocked like hell and showed a generation a new way to listen to music. Verses, choruses and any other vestiges of conventional songwriting went out the door and only reappeared if parody or subversion was intended.
Black metal of the Scandinavian variety did likewise. Mayhem, Darkthrone and others drew from death metal sources, but there’s not much doubt that Scott Conner (aka Malefic, aka Xasthur), like other primitives including sometime colleague Sin Nanna of Striborg, owes his musical inspiration to Varg Vikernes, the godfather (if that’s the right term) of ambient, apocalyptic black metal. Vikernes carried rock instrumentation away from technical death to misty mythical realms and, blessed with his great gift for rhythm, forged unique postmodern metal with folk band bounce. You can dance to it. So it is with Xasthur.
While Xasthur’s music is not exactly of the same cast as the Count’s – it’s clearly made from Malefic’s own vision – it’s similar in its ability to really rock along. Malefic is a very solid drummer with his own signature feel. You’ll tap your foot and bash away on the steering wheel. His vocals are even more dehydrated than Vikernes’, distorted probably through the same pedal as the guitar. What makes it all work so well are the clever and thoughtful arrangements. Hypnotic repetition is integral to this kind of music and it’s easy to complain that it plods on endlessly but Malefic knows when to bring in subtle variations to maintain interest, up the drama and get the nerve-ends tingling. Two great examples of his symphonic noisemongering are “Blood from the Roots of the Forest Part 1” and “Reflecting Hateful Energy”. No further analysis is necessary. Go listen.
For me the finest track comes close to the end, “Tyrant of Nightmares (Darkened Winter Promo '01 version)”. It’s like a pair of jeans about to reach their ultimate stage of perfection just as they hit the bottom of the garbage can. There’s almost nothing left of them. So with this version of “Tyrant of Nightmares”. The album’s bleak, snow-blasted demo sound is abraded, degraded and distorted even further for this standout piece, ground almost to dust. Only the last vestiges of the tonal character of the instruments remain and it works brilliantly, like music under hypnosis.
I’ve listened to this disc many times and never tire of it. It would be sinful to award it anything less than full marks.
Xasthur returns for his follow-up to the full-length debut "Nocturnal Poisoning", released in 2002. "The Funeral of Being", released in late 2003, is a worthy successor to "Nocturnal Poisoning" and manages to capture the traditional Xasthur atmosphere we are all so familiar with. The music is melodic but not in the way that it sounds clean or polished. It is extremely haunting, and in a disturbing way, beautiful.
Xasthur is known for creating some insanely haunting, nightmarish, and even scary music. A lot of people don't seem to grasp this concept and view Scott Connor (Malefic) as just some depressed, cliche black metal musician. Be that as it may, he is extremely effective at creating some horrifying music. The atmosphere on this album sounds like something you'd hear when you're experiencing an extremely trippy nightmare. The album's introductory track "The Awakening to the Unknown Perception of Evil" sets the overall mood for the album's near 50-minute run time. This song shifts from an eerie riff accompanied by a slight synth in the background to something a little faster, yet equally disturbing and dissonant. The riffs throughout the album's duration do seem to sound similar to one another at various points, but really, that's not a bad thing for Xasthur. Scott has, in all honesty, wrote a lot of music throughout Xasthur's black metal period. Because of this, a lot of ideas will end up sounding similar. In this case, this really does wonders for the album's atmosphere of misery and minimalism. The playing throughout is extremely simple in terms of technicality but as I am well aware, minimalism and simplicity can really boost the atmosphere of a depressive black metal album. Such is definitely the case with "The Funeral of Being".
This album seems to be split into sections. Track 3 and track 7 are both titled as "Intro", and the final track is, of course, the "Outro". I'm assuming the reason for these instrumental pieces is to separate the different "movements" from each other. There are other instrumental moments on the album, such as the first track, "Blood from the Roots of the Forest, Part 2" (which ironically comes right before "Part 1"), and the absolutely gorgeous little interlude that is "Black Necrotic Paleness". So, out of the 11 tracks on the album, 6 are instrumental. Xasthur is definitely known for creating some moving instrumental tracks throughout his career, perhaps his best ones being "Walker of Dissonant Worlds" from the album "To Violate the Oblivious" and the "Instrumental" song from his split with Leviathan. In fact, every Xasthur album has had it's share of instrumental beauties. Sometimes I wonder just what Scott was thinking when he crafted his black metal albums because he has made some of the most beautifully fucked up music I've ever heard.
Throughout the non-instrumental pieces on "The Funeral of Being", Scott's vocals are as tortured and melancholic as ever. His screams and howls are really a huge part of what makes this music so terrifying. Take his vocals during the clean break of "Blood from the Roots of the Forest, Part 1". While the music at this point is very ambient and melodic, Scott's vocals are as wretched as ever. My favorite word when describing an event such as this would be the "duality effect" because it's a mix of polarizing opposites within the music.
At this point in Xasthur's career, Scott was still using a drum machine. He wouldn't begin using real drums until "Defective Epitaph" in 2007. This does not effect the music in a negative way, however; it's still extremely effective for the atmosphere, and the drums do not sound completely or overly fake. He makes use mainly of mid-paced drum lines with some double bass thrown in for good measure every now and then. On songs such as "The Awakening to the Unknown Perception of Evil" and "Reflecting Hateful Energy", he even uses blast beats. Of course, blasts are still fairly rare on this album. After all, it's not like we are listening to a furious, hyperspeed monster like "Panzer Division Marduk" or "The Secrets of the Black Arts". Of course, if you came to Xasthur expecting something like that, you're definitely going to be disappointed. This is not black metal to bang your head to. This is black metal with which to abandon your hope and happiness.
Through its monotony and simplicity, accompanied by haunting sounds of the darkest abyss, "The Funeral of Being" is another great album from Xasthur. It's extremely effective with its atmosphere and direction. Scott Connor is truly an enigma of a human being, and "The Funeral of Being" is definitely worthy of bearing the Xasthur name.
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