TEITANBLOOD - SEVEN CHALICES (listening guide)

 

                                                                          “... all the filmmakers were suicidal (...) filming a film                                                                             was like cutting your veins, on your wrist, transversal cuts,

                                                                     which healed quickly, until one day a filmmaker made a film

                                                                     that was like a longitudinal slash, one that cut an entire vein,

                                                              lengthwise, and that was his masterpiece, and therefore his death,

                                                             and everything he did afterwards was done by a ghost.”

                                                                                Vivir abajo (2019), Gustavo Faverón Patriau

Introduction

 

 

The first Speculative Metal listening guide is dedicated to one of the most important extreme metal bands of the last two decades: Teitanblood.

Teitanblood are one of the main exponents of what members of the Numinoso Círculo Atlante like Drhuj call Speculative Metal, that is:

"Bands that play experimental and avant-garde metal, that speculate with style to take it to unexplored regions on a sonic and conceptual level." (Corpus mutatio, chap. 6, "West of Arkham")

Relgneps Razalas says about “Seven chalices” that "it is a work of first-rate Speculative Metal. In this album, Teitanblood makes a foray into the past in search of archaeological remains, objects of power from the classic era of Extreme Metal. When these sound artifacts are chewed, digested and assimilated, Teitanblood uses them to open a portal to the future: they are placed before a deformed mirror that shows what is to come, a mirror image to escape the spectrum (the metal that repeats itself). “Seven Chalices" caused a trauma to the face of metal back in 2009. The injury caused was so intense that it allowed them to lead the resurgence of the OSDM and its multiple variants ever since." (Metallorum mutatio: Corpus theoreticum, Book I, cap. 2 "Historical pseudomorphoses")

Teitanblood released a textural Speculative Metal album so striking that it produced a displacement in the perspective axis. With “Seven Chalices”, Teitanblood began to map unexplored regions within the map of extreme metal (difference vs. repetition, that's the key). The trauma caused a crack through which the primary symbols on which all Speculative Metal is based ascended: non-Euclidean and anti-canonical form, textures and atmospheres that contaminate the sound base, making it mutate until it becomes unrecognizable. A frontal attack is made on stability through the use of a hypercomplex meta-structure that contributes to disorientation, a rhizome-shaped meta-structure that extends through the musical elements, affecting them both horizontally and vertically with a management of the pulse and the time based on hyperchaos, on diachrony, to achieve a sensation of absolute time that destroys the chronological and linear discourse, making a terrible chaos manifest, a supreme horror, the one we feel when we heard Extreme Metal for the first time at that time already forgotten.

Teitanblood are masters initiated in the application of Salazar's Law and its displacement of the perspective axis. They know the secret of the law and its dark implications and apply it without fear to enter the unknown (the known is relegated/submerged and the hidden, the unknown, rises/emerges). This is how they achieve the final result: hybridization. Because “Seven Chalices” is "a hybrid, a mixture of styles distilled over low heat in forgotten alchemical flasks," as Relgneps Razalas explains. Many labels are applied to the style of Teitanblood. Their music emerged from the depths to praise and pay tribute to the pioneers of Extreme Metal, those who led the birth of Death and Black Metal. "Go back to go forward" (verse 1 of the Metallicum Proverbia by Inat-se-Ragen). It has been written many times that Teitanblood are the perfect mix between both styles, perhaps the band that has best managed to merge both manifestations. The band itself is aware and they do not wait to be labeled but offer their own: Black Metal Death Magic - Black Magic Death Metal. I can't think of a better definition of what we are going to hear... 

Let's list some of the primary elements of Teitanblood's style in "Seven Chalices":

- They use very few riffs in each song despite the length of the songs. The riffs are used until exhaustion, repeated until a trance and hypnotic feeling is achieved due to it. Furthermore, the chromaticism and atonality that characterizes them as well as their (apparent) simplicity make the feeling of confusion due to the repetition, the minimalism with which they are interpreted, increase the feeling of disorientation in the listener, who is usually used to a more standard style in the riffs of extreme metal bands. Many of these riffs are classic riffs, with a very marked old school style but they are taken to the extreme by their minimalist use, turning them into totally experimental loop-weapons. Its essence mutates to a totally new nature, thus producing the displacement in the perspective axis. 

 

- This disorientation is reflected by the accumulation of elements: at a textural, tonal and formal level, where the very succession of the thematic blocks is designed with such mastery that they provoke a feeling of daze. The shape of their songs is anti-canonical, rhizoma-like, fleeing from the typical pop structure that is inserted in the vast majority of extreme metal songs (where there is a canonical use of verses, choruses, bridges and the relationships that exist between them). Teitanblood composes by grouping riffs into thematic blocks (clear influence of Deathspell Omega according to Relgneps Razalas) that most of the time are exposed and are not repeated again, ensuring that the song is supported by a meta-structure that propels it forward without possibility. return. There is thus a dissolution of the shape, of the architecture of each cut and of the album itself.

- This dissolution of shape is supported in turn by the use of textures and atmospheres: the sections where they are used primarily function as periods where pulse and time disappear, a deconstructive rhizome. They open a vector towards infinity until the measurable and pulse return. Both in the passages and themes used as apparent interludes, and in the interpretation of the riffs. The ambient parts (by CG Santos) are not testimonial but are an essential part of the music's narrative as they are fully inserted in its discourse. Without these parts Teitanblood would not be able to achieve with the same force the feeling of estrangement that they provoke in the listener and that differentiates them from so many other bands.

- The guitar solos are used as texture, as another layer that moves the narrative of the song forward. They tend to have an atonal and improvised character in the group's first releases.

- The vocals are incredibly well executed and are much more varied than is normal for the style. Generally, the mid-range vocalist uses only one type of voice for the entire record, sometimes two and rarely more. In Teitanblood you have to add the effects and use of overlay. Here NSK's deployment of resources is equivalent to that of several discographies of multiple vocalists.

 

- Production is a basic element for the final sound result. Fleeing from the type of productions that had been dominating Extreme Metal for more than a decade, Teitanblood opted for a sound that seems to hide the music behind a dense fog where the textures, the atmospheres (along with percussions that fight to make their way between the insanely low tones of the guitars and the bass) result in music that hides more than it shows and where it will be the listener who must delve into the mist to find the many secrets that this album hides.

SEVEN CHALICES

Line-up: 

NSK: guitars, bass

J: drums

JC Deus: guitars, recording

CG Santos: effects, programming

J. Bastard: mastering

1. Whore mass 

The album opens with a fragment of Krzysztof Penderecki's "Auschwitz Oratorium", an anti-war work. This sample (taken from the middle of the first movement of the oratorio) sets the atmosphere for the entire album and already presents one of its most defining characteristics: the importance of atmosphere. The unmitigated oppressive and evil atmosphere is not only present in all the songs but is accentuated to the nth degree by the songs where CG Santos (effects, programming) shows his ability to unleash hidden forces through the process of invocation and infection that involves the writting of a piece of music with a fragment of another piece unrelated to this work. The interrelationships that occur multiply in this way.

After this introduction, the “traditional” instruments appear (0:59): guitars, bass and drums join together to establish the tone of the strictly metal part of the album. Throughout the album we will see the importance of the alternation and even the simultaneity between the two: atmosphere and band.

We are faced with a riff with clear reminiscences of Celtic Frost and Autopsy, two bands that will come to our minds continuously while listening to the album. The riff is repeated several times with slight variations in the percussion, whose impact is increased with the entry of the first guitar solo (2:05) by JC Deus, chaotic, unbridled and improvised in nature, full of evil bends with a use of the lever worthy of the Hanneman/King tandem.

 

The introduction of Penderecki's anti-war oratorio thus mutates into the invocation of a Mass for the Whore. The booklet that accompanies the physical edition of “Seven Chalices” is a work of art in itself, of astonishing complexity and richness. It should be clarified that “Seven Chalices” is the written to sound like a sonic version of number 3 of the cult fanzine Davthus edited and illustrated by Timo Ketola. NSK has clarified in interviews that they got the inspiration for this album from there. Ketola illustrates the different themes of the album page by page. For this first theme he shows us the way: an amalgamation of forbidden languages and writings, infernal sigils submerged in a cloud of insects: spiders (symbolizing creative power, weavers of the veil of illusions to open this work), along with scorpions (referenced the danger of death, equivalents of the executioner, warning to the listener of the album) ending with centipedes (exponents of crawling and knotted energy).

All this accumulation of symbols (the occult theory of signatures conceives everything that exists as a symbol and believes its reading is feasible (Eduardo Cirlot, Dictionary of Symbols)) in just three minutes of music is a clear warning to the listener. We are at the threshold and once crossed, we must be aware of the path chosen and the forces that are about to be unleashed.

2. Domains of Darkness and Ancient Evil 

An enormous sigil heads and opens the invocation in the booklet, an opening that coincides with the first explosion on a musical level. After a brief intro with a mid-tempo riff we face the first blast beat of the album. Teitanblood's use of these fast parts is quite different from what usually occurs in traditional extreme metal since here the level of chaos and the feeling of lack of control are maximum. And this is achieved first of all by the production of the album, which opts for a sound where the drums are hidden behind the spectacular guitars and bass tone, which enhance the low frequencies. This commitment to this type of production (which Portal has made incredibly popular in the sickest and most psychedelic Death Metal) is precisely what was being abandoned by the majority of Death Metal bands since the late nineties where they began to look for a sound every increasingly clean and crisp with the help of technology and recording systems that began to expand more and more within the style that began to move the productions away from the sound of the first and canonical Death Metal albums that established the foundations of the style. Thus, Teitanblood opted (from his first demo) for a path against the mainstream that a few years ago has gained presence again but that at that time (2009) was a declaration of intentions. But this turning back or this refusal to want to move forward results in the opposite of what one would expect, since the productions of most of the bands that fled from the lo-fi sound ended up destroying the feeling of danger and confrontation that the first legendary releases from the great Death Metal bands possesed. Teitanblood is thus placed in an apparently retrograde position but they bill an artifact that is much more advanced than the average release of this genre since they manage to look back and move forward at the same time, using a series of resources for this, which will be exposed throughout this text.

 

In the drums we can see the influence of Hellhammer's way of playing the cymbals in “De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas” by Mayhem, a resource that J. (Teitanblood´s drummer) will use throughout the album and that he will develop in the next albums with great mastery and enormous aesthetic sense.

This track summarizes Teitanblood's use of riffs throughout the album. The riffs are few in each song despite its length, since each riff is launched in a minimalist and primitive repetition cycle that paradoxically causes an avant-garde and experimental effect that moves away from the typical use of riffs by bands of traditional Death Metal within the standard song structure (verses, choruses, solos and repetition). The feeling at the end is one of disorientation for the listener since the variations are very subtle and done with great intelligence so that the entire sound mass advances within the apparent stasis (“movement within immobility, immobility within movement” as Antonio Moresco says in the introduction to his monumental trilogy “Eternity Games” and which he explores as a narrative technique in his novels). A “subtle art” (as the lyrics say in “Domains of Darkness and Ancient Evil”) that few can handle and emerge victorious, as Teitanblood does here.

After a tempo change, the first riff is presented with some insane NSK vocals that prepare the ground for the first blast beat of the album (0:40) to which we referred previously. Teitanblood subjects us to the first vortex of shapeless chaos with a sense of uncontrollability that most of today's extreme metal lacks. This apparent lack of control is accentuated by NSK's disturbed vocals and JC Deus' solos until a mid-tempo riff (2:15) appears as a respite before returning to the evil vortex of speed (3:35). The voices do not give the listener any break, again supported by the use of solos based on tremolo and use of the lever. A pause interrupts everything but the background of threatening chants warns us that we are going to face one of the darkest moments of the album. From that abstract vocal texture suddenly emerges an ultra-primitive high-pitched riff (reminiscent of the first extreme metal releases) that turns into an excellent improvised solo (yet another) by JC Deus supported by the dark energy unleashed by the latest sonic assault blast beat.

3. عين إبليس 

The following topic once again brings the work of CG Santos to the foreground. The title in Arabic, “The Devil's Eye”, helps us focus on the predominant oriental sound in the music. A desert wind transmutes into a hum accompanied by flies until a chant calling to prayer takes over. From the text of the booklet we obtain the context: atmosphere of sacrifice, desecration, worship of death through the corpse. The quote from Revelation 14:4 goes deeper into the atmosphere:

“…they follow the lamb wherever it goes (…) they are virgins, they are pure… But death will finally dominate and corrupt with its touch even what has been pure.”

 

4. Morbid devil of pestilence 

The death singing is transformed into unleashed energy with a beginning of the song that may remind us of “Anteinferno” in its brutality, the beginning of what will be the next album by Teitanblood ("Death"). The irrepressible inertia of the instruments is limited to the obsessive repetition of two/three riffs that will occupy (always with subtle variations) the first half of the song. The voices are performed with such brutality and pestilence that they practically function as texture and alternate with the guitar solos so that the intensity increases more and more in an irrational frenzy. This spiral of endless violence slows down with a mid-tempo riff (4:17) where NSK once again shows the rest of extreme metal vocalists how innovation can be done in this area, with inexhaustible creativity both in resources and in sound approach. Teitanblood masterfully uses these slower tempo riffs before plunging us back into a vortex of brutality and speed (5:16) with a new barrage of blast beats that again increase the intensity to almost unbearable when a last guitar solo taken from the tireless neck of JC Deus joins the ensemble (6:23) to reach the final climax of this crushing song that leaves in its wake a deformed hurricane of blackened corpses.

In the booklet, “Morbid devil of pestilence” has a spectacular diptych by Timo Ketola, which shows an unhealthy obsession with detail; everywhere you look you are hit by messages and images of a brutal intensity, parallel to that shown on a musical level. What we see could be described as an infernal sephirotic tree (“See the bleeding ichor holy of the sephiroth”) through which the ascent to its summit leads us to the depths of our fears, to a horror of unbearable eternal pain. Names in Hebrew are mixed with impious formulas written in Greek and English, forming a horror vacui that forces us to turn the pages over and over again and read the texts just as Abdul Al Hazred surely read the Necronomicon:

“I am the dawn of my own light… I find the doors and I am the key… a shapeless abyss of infernal depth"

5. 𐎑𐎛𐎗𐎎𐎟𐎄𐎀𐎗𐎛𐎎 

To support the claim that in “Seven Chalices” the union of art, images, text and music provides an experience similar to reading the most forbidden of books, the Lovecraftian Necronomicon, we find this fifth track, where music immerses us in an impious and blasphemous environment. These tracks that are often described as interludes falsely function as such since within their apparent calm lies a first-class sonic tension. Apparently they serve as a counterpoint to “traditional” tracks but their purpose is the same: to prevent the listener from recovering from a tireless sound discharge through the use of different symbols and sound tools.

In 𐎑𐎛𐎗𐎎𐎟𐎄𐎀𐎗𐎛𐎎 (a title that according to metal-archives.com is in Ugaritic, an extinct Northwest Semitic language that was spoken in the ancient city of Ugarit, located in modern-day Syria) CG Santos subtly builds an atmosphere on a drone that little by little more textural layers are added until an amalgam of voices is revealed (0:50) to sing a song in forgotten languages.

The ceremony is accompanied by a subtle instrumentation of oriental sounds that perfectly accompany the illustration of the booklet where the messages written in cuneiform are mixed with names in Hebrew, Arabic and NSK´s texts that seem to have a life of their own as they spread across the page without no impediment occupying any gap next to the being/entity invoked in the central area, Pazuzu:

“Hear my call… emaciated skull of fire breath, grant me the poisoned sip of your chalice… beneath the ruins of the 3 pillars, hissing locusts lurk at the threshold…”  

 

And this track closes with the eerie sound of those hissing lobsters...

 

6. Infernal Dance of the Wicked 

We get back on the back of the beast that is once again riding out of control. The initial blast beat over several riffs that follow one another submerges us again in a haze of speed that even increases in pulse (1:25) to drag us even further into an endless abyss. After this (1:45) a couple of riffs are exposed that will be repeated obsessively until the end of the song and on which J. deploys several different drum nuances while they are repeated tirelessly. This technique, presented here in a subtle way, will be one of the hallmarks of Teitanblood's drums in future releases where the drums will present a narrative function, providing different meanings to the same riff that is interpreted as a stable motif. Stability and variation as ornamental elements in an apparently basic music that hides an unfathomable richness for neophytes. Primitive riffs used as minimalist weapons-loops. Add to this the wide variety of different tempos used, something accentuated by the live recording of the music in the studio, free from the tyranny of the metronome that has made much of today's extreme metal incredibly boring.

The infernal dance of the wicked referred to in the title takes place around an infernal mandala: a flower with multiple petals with a message of infinite combinations engraved on them.

 

The terms included in Sanskrit (another language used in the lyrics) within the texts transport us back to the East, something that perfectly accompanies the textural layer that rises to the surface in the final section of the composition (4:20) (which we recognize as one of the elements used in the previous track, adding internal coherence to the whole and accentuating the global sensation of the work, a suite conceived as an indivisible whole) and which will serve as a link with the following song.

7. वामाचार 

The initial arpeggio (which is repeated repeatedly throughout the song) immerses us again in the atmosphere that CG Santos created in 𐎑𐎛𐎗𐎎𐎟𐎄𐎀𐎗𐎛𐎎. The orientalizing atmosphere (drones, sitar, rattles...) is imposed again although the approach of the voices is much less aggressive  and more atmospheric now, intoning a hypnotizing mantra.

The वामाचार (Vamachara), the left hand path, opens for us... One of the figures in the illustration in the booklet is perhaps shown dead next to a stream; Her left hand is submerged in the waters... And so the current drags us again...

 8. Seven Chalices of Vomit and Blood 

The beginning of the eighth track, with a mid-tempo introduction (with voices that never cease to surprise with their variety) stops to show us the only riff on the album introduced by the bass (0:30). During this antediluvian barrage we hear the bass drum much more present in the mix than in other songs, further accentuating the feeling of lack of control and savagery before J. who hits his drums in a totally unleashed way. Not only is technique not the essential thing here, but it is an impediment to reaching these levels of madness that remind us of the first Death Metal demos of the second half of the eighties. A slow chord riff (2:13) keeps the intensity of the song maintained despite slowing down as JC Deus' solos and NSK's Lovecraftian vocals prevent the atmosphere from reducing its level of auditory punishment. This part is brutally cut off to embark on a fast section (3:20) that will reign over the last third of the song. The voices (which stand out again throughout the song) once again shine well above the average interpretations of other extreme vocalists. The interpretation can only be defined as diabolical, truly evil, ungodly at the highest level we can conceive. As an illustrative example, listen carefully to how NSK sings “O' Azazel!” at 4:25... The voices overlap, accumulate, they are a veritable swarm that saturate the listener by flooding. The 7 Chalices are invoked. The song is immersed (as the texts indicate) in a whirlwind of chaos and darkness until its conclusion.

In the booklet, we see a female figure inserted in a magic circle on which a seven-pointed star is drawn that frames the seven chalices and seven demons. Everything is surrounded by messages, names and texts that extend to the point of being illegible, trapping us in a network of infinite references in a mental prison.

9. Qliphotic Necromancy 

The ninth cut of the album is dominated by a voice that invokes in Hebrew. We are facing a ceremony of necromancy: the ancient dark art of divination by evocation of the dead. We are on the dark side of the sephirotic tree, Qlippoth, which means shell or peel and refers to what remains once the energy in things leaves them. The necromancer is surrounded by voices that take center stage in a plot excellently woven by CG Santos. A lament emerges from the voices (1:55) that further twists the oppressive atmosphere in the final section, increasing the sensation that the booklet transmits with the enormous blood stains that flood the text.

10. The Abomination of Desolation 

We enter the final stretch with the two longest songs on the album. Twelve minutes was not a normal length for a Death Metal song in 2009 nor is it now and that is where we see once again Teitanblood's capacity for innovation, adding elements such as minimalism and repetition on the one hand, and psychedelia on the other, to put them at the service of his work. We talk about psychedelia as an element that has been taking center stage in recent years in extreme metal and that is understood here as a resource that allows us to escape from the basic resources of the style to twist and modify them in such a way that this music, which was being domesticated, Due to the standardization of resources and similar production styles, it can once again surprise the listener, excite their sound experience by altering their perception.

The song´s shape escapes the usual canon (verses, choruses, bridges, solo, etc.). We could say that the shape is the primordial symbol of Seven Chalices, the way in which all the sound material is organized. We find ourselves facing a non-architecture, facing musicians who flee from the standard to be inspired by the anti-Euclidean geometry of R'lyeh. This track in particular and Seven Chalices in general are a temple designed by a madman where disorientation is guaranteed for those who enter it for the first time. I remember having this feeling the first times I listened to Eyehategod or Portal, a feeling that has been disappearing from Extreme Metal. Teitanblood invokes an annihilation, a suppression of all forms, a sonic storm that destroys our ability to navigate like very few other bands can do.

"The Abomination of Desolation" begins with a mid-tempo riff that again brings Celtic Frost to mind. An excellent drum section at 1:35 adds variety to this riff which is modified by the use of tremolo when it returns. A slow transition worthy of Autopsy (2:35) takes us directly to the first blast beat of the song (3:35) which is pushed to the limit with a new increase in speed at 4:20 supported by the use of vocals. and the very inspired and infernal improvised solos of JC Deus. A slow passage immerses us in the middle of the song. A riff very similar to the one at 6:30 will be used again in The Baneful Choir with an excellent use of the Slayer-like trill that will mutate and subtly changing along with the drums before the entire band is buried in the depths of a primal cave where the ceremony we have attended since the beginning of the album will end. The atmospheres of maestro CG Santos drive a sacred song to the foreground (8:50). The presence of humidity and the waters that lie hidden in the cave progressively replace the chant until they prevail (10:55). It's time to look at the album cover. The 7 chalices have been arranged. The necromancer has summoned them and the beast answers the call, rising from the dark waters. The texts are brutal:

“Haunted betwixt strange angles
layers of light sleeping under forgotten graves (…) of fouls spirits

Serpent bound glyph with a burning trident as crown

Where the unspeakable enemy of all extendeth backward

Sparkles residues shallow skeletons of the egkosmic

Vacuuming vortex of never-conceived horrors

Reshit Ha-Gilgulim swirling back to ancient chaos.” 

The calm in this final stretch should not deceive us since we are about to face the climax of the album. We have visited all the rooms of the temple, of this insane and ominous temple, and we are now facing the Sancta-Sanctorum, the place destined for the last revelation...

11. The Origin of Death 

After a classic intro in the Autopsy style, the first blast beat of the song soon appears (0:40). All the drums on this song are excellent with J. making use of the cymbals where interpretive details abound to add internal accents that provide variety in the accompaniment of riffs that are repeated and repeated tirelessly until they are exhausted and a moment later replaced by the next one that will be executed in the same way.

Here we are faced with riffs where the melodic and harmonic discourse based on chromaticism and atonality (resources accentuated by the production of the guitars and bass) mean that everything is wrapped in an abstract haze that prevents recognizing a logical path of resolution at a tonal level. The paths are infinite although precisely the chosen riffs have a great connection between them as they go through a common aesthetic when selecting the notes and the way they are played.

The difficulty of practicing such a minimalist and primitive style (in appearance, I insist) is that you must manage very well the deployment of resources to provide solidity and meaning to the narrative and sound discourse. Precisely, changes in tempo and choosing the moments in which variations in intensity occur are one of the tools that Teitanblood uses with great mastery. And so it happens at 2:25 with the appearance of another riff executed in blast beat that increases the feeling of chaos and lack of control to the maximum, as already happened several times throughout the album.

The details in the percussion, the wildness and intensity of the playing continue to sound fresh agaain and again. To this we must add Teitanblood's secret weapon, which is the voices. NSK continues to deploy an amount of resources and an imagination that seems inexhaustible (in 1:15, hazy and atmospheric, in 2:35 superimposed and accumulated).

After a first third of the song based on speed and brutality, what decision does Teitanblood make? Raise the level of dementia and madness even more. The passage from 3:40 to 5:05 once again opens a vortex of chaos, to which solos and voices are added to make us raise our eyebrows once again after almost an hour of music.

At 5:05 they prepare a section where the tempo drops somewhat and the riffs and drums mutate and add heavier elements. The objective of this section is to provide a break before facing the final stretch where three and a half minutes of excessive irrationality await us.

The 6:00 riff, driven by a drum roll of the kind that is no longer performed, introduces us to the final blast beat where the voices and guitar solos take turns taking center stage until everything comes together at once to the epic finale in 8:08. The voices attack us from all dimensions, surrounding everything in an atmosphere for which I run out of adjectives until the path ends after pure mental exhaustion. We have reached the origin of death. We have accessed the interior of each living cell, the double helix, where the secret of organic existence lies and we have contemplated the great snake that coils around itself endlessly and thus coils the music itself like a fractal design that It expands in all possible dimensions:

“A rotating serpent, coiled an eight, rotating twirling, 

two serpents rotating a thounsand million serpents 

one inside every cell of every organism ever lived or ever to lived.”

The feeling after the conclusion is one of total exhaustion but at the same time a satisfaction that makes us remember what we felt when we heard what they call Extreme Metal for the first time.

"To go forward 

First you have to go back"  

(Inat-se-Ragen, Metallicum Proverbia, verse 1)