DEEP FOG (Textural Metal)
"...anything that was subject to the impermanence of its essence, its transitory nature, anything on the edge of extinction..."
My work is not finished yet,, Thomas Ligotti
Metallicum Proverbia - Inat-se-Ragen
Versículo 28:
“The past is umpredictable"
"its depth is unfathomable”
FORWORD
Joseph Mallord William Turner, one of the greatest landscape painters in history, saw his style surrender to this effect that inspired him to create his most famous works.
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| Rain, Steam, and Speed - Turner |
Half a century later, Claude Monet was in London and felt equally captivated by the effects of fog in the city, and how it hid reality by showing it behind a texture of estrangement:
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| Houses of Parliament - Monet |
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| Waterloo bridge in the fog - Claude Monet |
The work of Turner and Monet followed the same trend over the years. They were trapped in that ghostly white... With no possibility of escape... Buried in the DEEP FOG.
Years later, that fog infected a new organism. A new musical trend was immersed in white... in white noise.
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DEEP FOG
Raw black metal, lo-fi black metal, atmospheric black metal, dark ambient, depressive black metal, atmoblack... The synonyms and labels seem endless. All of them try to describe the music of a group of bands that try to preserve a certain sound and the sensation caused by the music of the pioneering bands that gave rise to what ended up being called Black Metal: Venom, Hellhammer, Bathory, Darkthrone, Mayhem, etc.
The sound of those first albums that made up the classic sound of Black Metal often responded to limitations in the technical means. As Salvador Rubio expresses in "Extreme Metal: 30 Years of Darkness (1981-2011)":
"... a dirty, unbalanced production, with infrequent equalizations that drown out the bass and sublimate the treble, sometimes you record in an analog way and with a result that few sound engineers trained in the traditional way would consider valid."
As Druj explains in his Corpus Mutatio, something unexpected emerged from these limitations: "a sound that evoked like never before the malignancy, horror, and dementia that musicians wanted to imprint on their compositions and lyrics." Maintaining that type of production of classic bands, that sound, preserving it and preserving it in thousands of later recordings when the means were already better was a question that has been related to authenticity, to staying faithful to a spirit that marked the beginning of the style.
These bands that continue to focus their sound in this way began to be labeled with all the names with which we began this section. But in recent years it seems that a new trend has emerged within this subgenre that uses that lo-fi sound to take this music beyond the limits. Now the bands not only want to sound like before, but they add several elements that allow us to talk about the emergence of a new paradigm in extreme metal. It is what Relgneps Razalas defines in his Liber Semitarum as "the DEEP FOG." (Ch. 5, "Faustian Arts: The Triumph of Instrumental Music over Oil Painting")
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| Snow Storm: Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth (1842) - Turner |
Until a few years ago, bands within lo-fi black metal not only imitated the sound of classic bands but also their music (the way of composing, the resources in each instrument, the voices...). According to Druj: "the bands under the new paradigm appropriate that sound, that white noise, to take it further with a desire for extreme experimentation that consists of the implementation of new musical resources at all levels that allow us to safely define to this new style, DEEP FOG, like a new sound universe." (Corpus Mutatio, chapter 8 "The color of space")
These bands provide new features on 3 levels:
- texture/sound (mastery of texture above all)
- form (hyperchaotic and rhizomatic structures)
- compositional resources (inclusion of novelties from styles other than black metal)
And thus they meet the requirements of what Speculative Metal is, a revolution at all levels within extreme metal.
The DEEP FOG "affects the compositions so much that we almost witness bands with a sound that is about to disappear, to cease to exist, to be on the edge of existence and to enter extinction, due to the dominance of sound experimentation with texture reigning supreme above all. Bands that delve into the DEEP FOG and subject their compositions to the dense mist to make them sound as insane and ghostly as never before." Chap. 7, "Of the form of Cthulhu" from Corpus mutatio (Druj)
The DEEP FOG bands subject their music to a sonic spell, an alchemical process to transmute it into a new soundscape.
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| El puente japonés - Monet |
These albums sound like absent music reimagined by a mind from the future, a reinterpretation of an extinct sonic artifact, a sonic relic found through forbidden archaeological methods.
The texture is a merciless invasion of xenoparticles that takes the music to the border of its essence by diluting its identity as the music becomes submerged: it is schizophrenic music, which leads to a trajectory of dismantling identity. This schizophrenic fog causes us to perceive reality in an abnormal way, causing the listener to experience a combination of delusions and hallucinations. The dust covers everything, the texture reigns unopposed and the music is subdued under this maddening resource.
In one of the most terrifying passages of Corpus Mutatio, Druj explains that "the DEEP FOG is the cosmodromic blasphemy: when the texture is thrown on the musical base, a sacrilege is produced since we want to prevent what we want to hear from sounding. That dichotomy is the basis of style, the exceptional as a rule, the application of the infamous and impious Salazar´s Law." (Chap. 2, “Towards the unknown Kadath”)
The atmosphere/texture is used as a spell that causes a crack in reality: an opening in the sense of being exposed, cracked, sacrificed to the outside. Subjecting a band's music to the DEEP FOG means, according to Razalas: "an alteration in the stability of its primary symbols, causing a displacement of the perspective axis. The DEEP FOG acts as an autonomous entity and you submit to its will, definitively losing control over compositions." (Metallorum mutatio: Corpus theoreticum, cap. 3, "Time and fate; Space and causality")
These bands subjected to the DEEP FOG make us experience something similar to the stories of Arabic and Farsi folklore where stories are told not told by the one who is going to be opened and devoured by them. We face delirium, terminal madness, like Abdul Al-Hazred reading the Necronomicon.
TRHÄ
Trhä is one of the bands that have revolutionized the genre in recent years. Formed by Damián Antón Ojeda in charge of all the music, Trhä has managed to attract attention to its project with a dazzling and prolific career (since 2020 they have released 30 references between LPs, EPs and splits). The latter acquire great importance since they have served as a launching platform for other bands, allowing them to increase their visibility in a very saturated scene. Of these bands that share a split with Trhä, we highlight Sunset, Celestial Sword or Careus (we will talk about all of them in this text), but there are many more and Trhä acts as a generating parent band, acquiring a leading role within the style.
Trhä's style develops many of the basic elements of Deep Fog: rhizomatic structures, textural elements, maximum saturation, extensive and varied themes...
Many styles fit into their music: ambient, dark folk, psychedelia and obviously lo-fi raw black metal where the presence of environmental textures and layers are always very present while there are strong stylistic contrasts between atmospheric and dreamlike sections with aggressive discharges of violence. based on extensive blast beats and numerous riffs that follow one another endlessly. The main point here is that Trhä is helping to expand the frontiers of extreme metal, reaching unexplored regions and making it sound amazing again in an unprejudiced and ambitious way.
As we say, Trhä's music is very varied. From all their discography we have selected:
TRHÄ - mã Héshiva õn dahh Khata trhândlha vand ëfd datnen Aghen Ecíës drhãtdlhan savd
Single track album, really varied in its proposal: a summary of what the project is and a good point to start with Trhä if you don't know them.
SUNSET
SUNSET - SUNSET
https://sunsetwitchcraft.bandcamp.com/album/sunset
The opening is surprising with acoustic guitars that expose fast chords, tremolos and arpeggios. When the rest of the instruments enter we are already immersed in the deep fog, the textures bury the music in a dream world. During the album, SUNSET uses dramatic pauses between sections that contrast with the sonic vortex through which we do not see you dragged. This resource is repeated throughout the album. The guitar solos play a very important role since the minimalist exposition of riffs makes the solos acquire a narrative role that advances the musical discourse. The voices are really varied and are sung with a very high level of dementia, with hallucinated laughter and sick melodic moments.
The second song makes us delve deeper into the trance and we begin to realize that behind the fog many layers and secrets are hidden to be unraveled in repeated listenings. The voices are spectacular on this song, ranging from clean King Diamond highs to fierce gutturals. The sections follow one another and there is a great variety of ideas in both the riffs and the drums, all presented with an old school spirit but with a very experimental result thanks to the production. The shape also stands out since SUNSET continually surprises you. You never know what you're going to find after each section. As an example, the central clean part of this song is reminiscent of the guitars used in the introduction of the album. Soon chaos breaks out again until we reach an incredibly epic and heavy solo that gives way to some spectral voices that make you raise your eyebrows... And there are many connections in terms of intentionality with Teitanblood since wanting to achieve a lofi sound old school with which to transmit the same sensation of those first black metal recordings, the final result is pure experimentation by adding elements of speculative metal, especially the importance of texture and rhizomatic form. Layers and more layers are added as the music mutates at the end of the song. A pause where the bass briefly expounds a riff leads to an instant explosion reminiscent of those used by Teitanblood or Deathspell Omega. Really, the final result is of a brutality that few extreme metal bands achieve.
An acoustic guitar played like a piano opens the fourth theme and the beginning of the song is built on its harmonic scheme. In this song, very marked silences are used again to separate sections: one stands out for some schizophrenic voices; the next again due to the use of minimalist and orchestral percussions that accompany the guitar idea of the introduction of the song, although soon a blast beat appears again that returns us to the textural hallucination.
The ghostly guitars reintroduce the last song, which is the most extensive and complex where all the resources used by SUNSET in this masterpiece appear exposed, developed and taken to the maximum, highlighting the riffs with complex and asymmetric internal structures characteristic of speculative metal.
TRHÄ / SUNSET
https://trha.bandcamp.com/album/trh-sunset
SUNSET - EP
The chaos begins from the beginning and so does the variety since SUNSET is a much more varied project than it appears on a superficial listen: unhinged voices, clean guitars, atmospheric sections that burst in without warning to dismantle the narrative and delve into new terrain. unexpected. We are traveling to a past that did not exist, we visit liminal places where the laws of physics are diluted by a melancholy that envelops everything. It is a first-class dreamlike journey when the blast beats and aggressive voices return, we still drag that distant melody in the texture that tells us that we have not abandoned that timeless space. The surprises continue to occur with voices worthy of King Diamond that add just the right amount of dementia to the soundscape that SUNSET faces us with. The fog is so dense that it only allows us to contemplate the silhouette of some incomprehensible ruins, which are beyond reality. But suddenly a guitar solo reminds us that all this is more than heavy metal of the highest quality, a metal music that pays tribute to its origins without insulting them by copying. Here we enter the unknown, the fog surrounds us but we continue advancing recklessly, like madmen guided by an irrational drive, forward, forward, forward...
KRYATJURR OF DESERT AHD
https://kryatjurr.bandcamp.com/album/devastating-losses-of-ecological-doom .
Kryatjurr of Desert Ahd make top-tier textural metal, on par with the best Aevangelists. Minimalist ideas exposed in hypnotic loops while the texture takes over the musical base. The voices are performed with great originality (with motifs that are repeated in a very interesting way). The production is top-notch, successfully achieving the atmosphere required by the band.
It is a prolific band since they have published (in just two years) two albums and 4 EPs, grouped in two trilogies, one dedicated to the hidden forces of the desert and the other to the destructive power of the atmospheric masses of cyclonic storms.
Generally, an idea-loop is used during the same trilogy, like the panting dog that accompanies us in the desert trilogy and that punishes the listener intensely. All these elements are present through the use of effects and electronics that contribute to enriching the band's sound.
https://kryatjurr.bandcamp.com/album/deafening-supercells-of-thunder-and-death
BERYLLIUM
https://totaldissonanceworship.bandcamp.com/album/your-laughter-is-an-echo-in-my-head
The beginning of the album is brutal and it takes a while until you get used to the sonic oppression you are subjected to. The album contains strong contrasts between the most extreme parts and the atmospheric ones, which even sound luminous (like the second song) although always under a dreamlike atmosphere that deforms all perception.
The third song, with the title "Soul sealed in torment", perfectly describes the sound storm to which we are exposed. One layer swallows another layer, which in turn imposes another in a fight for frequency that goes beyond the audible... Of this battle sometimes only pure vibration remains. The mastery of the production on this album is overwhelming. A good example is the way the acoustic guitar of the fourth track sounds, which shares its sound space with textures, vibrations, ghostly drones of threatening presence. Everything is hidden in deep fog. Vibration is the final frontier.
The variety of ideas shown is notable, with a truly spectacular use of the resources of the style. The end result is simply fascinating. Extreme metal no longer sounds extreme because of its predictability. This is extreme and surprising. We are entering a new paradigm. Here the percussions do not exist, but you hear them, or at least, you hear their remains, what remains of them once they have been subjected to the process of sound destruction that is the entire album. The same goes for the rest of the instruments. In this new paradigm, the recording of instruments is not the end, but rather a part of the process. The sound ensemble is then thrown into an abyss of alchemical mutations carried out in the studio, which is used as another instrument, as a compositional tool at the level of traditional instruments. The threat of deformation makes the final result unpredictable. Spectacular is, for example, the battle of textures and narrative layers of the last two songs where we hear a plot that includes several universes simultaneously through a masterful superposition of elements.
CELESTIAL SWORD
https://celestialsword.bandcamp.com/album/nocturnal-divinity-2
Celestial Sword's music is of great variety. While the riffs and drums offer many different resources, it is the voices and keyboards that transport us to an atmosphere of maximum sonic decadence. The voices function as specters that unleash dementia with an amount of reverb and saturation that constantly makes the listener feel an imminent threat. The same goes for the keyboards that add layer after layer of texture that covers the music with its deep fog, taking everything towards the dreamlike gloom. A truly inspired album.
COFFRET DE BIJOUX
https://coffretdebijoux.bandcamp.com/music
COFFRET DE BIJOUX - La l'dépendåancsee ause kelées magiquey quềềề leyn florquas arkions',` d'un moment ȧ l'autre',;; ṫesesc omeomeas magniq'''''e deŝŝ orne..; mëntš! Ėlllễs-mxme;;, Ėlllễs-les savencs..;; Nuertas seûiûlement après la pluit,;;;
Heavy metal is present from the beginning, its epicness and grandeur, but executed in a speculative metal style that deconstructs the style with very high originality. Saturation as a new extreme element, beyond atmospheric or lofi with a very careful production. The themes constantly surprise with a dreamlike component that is very present. Rhizomatic structures raise architectures that are beyond reality.
The brutality is present but absorbed by a fog that makes it enigmatic. Spectral voices would have been rejected years ago. The ideas are very striking and the drum and bass arrangements are very careful throughout the album, making use of silence as a resource, something absent in most extreme metal. The shifting rhythmic foundation adds to the narrative of each track, making the excellent riffs stand out even more. The double guitars are built with great complexity and multiple nuances with an excellent harmonization of all ideas that makes everything sound light and dark simultaneously.
The sensation is that of visiting a basement where the demo of a group that never existed was forgotten; we are on the border between reality and dream, a liminal place to which only Randolph Carter can guide us.
There are details that further accentuate this sensation, such as the extra textural layers in the second track, whether melodic percussion or even more guitars that sink the rest of the instruments into a truly sublime sensation. This really is a new paradigm in metal. Coffret de Bijoux have released three albums in two months, another characteristic of this type of atmospheric and textural bands like Trhä or Sunset. Alice Simard, the composer and only member of the band (again, something characteristic of the style) is a figure to take into account for the future of Speculative Metal.
COFFRET DE BIJOUX - J'aeae cràiserais j'squa je n'aïe pluxe d'e vie,.,., perssonage n'ex sembleple s'enne préonccuxperale
Second album in a few weeks. The production changes, with the drums more present, the layers are better distinguished, the fog is not so thick and deep and the keyboards are more present.
The music continues to be linear and minimalist but rich in layers, full of nuances and details, the battle between the different layers and textural levels is epic, with a masterful production
The different ideas occur continuously in endless creativity with a rhizomatic structure.
A guitar passage in the middle of the first track that develops spaced melodies giving importance to silences takes us to a keyboard section on which a wild electronic percussion pattern is launched without warning, reminding us that we cannot take anything for granted in the music by Coffret de Bijoux.
The second song, a linear post-rock, is less striking but highlights that Alice Simard is totally free of prejudices when composing.
The last song returns to the most extreme sound of the first, with very interesting sections where the ukulele is added to the instrumentation.
COFFRET DE BIJOUX - t'trräeäntesstalxque
Once again the ideas and melodies are very inspired and well worked on. The contrasts between the different parts of the songs, with sections of absolute calm that suddenly appear after an explosion of energy, contribute to the discursive plot continually surprising.
The importance of the keyboards on this album is very high, at the level of the guitars or more, especially in the first song. Alice Simard's mastery of adapting to each style, of conjuring its primary elements and billing such an amount of material and so different is truly amazing.
The extreme saturation, typical of the style, continues to provide that indefinable and liminal atmosphere that places the music on a twilight frontier. Again, as in previous releases, electronic percussions are present (second and third tracks), which here are excellently composed with multiple variations full of imagination that reminded me of the Thrones style. In fact, in the last song, the atmosphere is purely electronic music, disappearing all hints of metal music, once again showing the creative freedom without limits or prejudices of Alice Simard.
LA TORTURE DES TENEBRES
LA TORTURE DES TENEBRES - CIVILIZATION IS THE TOMB OF OUR NOBLE GODS
https://latorturedestenebres.bandcamp.com/album/civilization-is-the-tomb-of-our-noble-gods
Samples and conversations are included from a forgotten world, which only lives in our memory and which we access through this non-linear music that curves time and breaks with chronological logic, imposing a rhizomatic narrative that extends in all directions.
The level of epic reaches its maximum level in the last song, a vortex based on a single melody exhausted to the end that produces altered mental states. One more example of how extreme metal can be therapeutic and provide a capacity for enjoyment that is unattainable for other styles in terms of intensity.
LA TORTURE DES TENEBRES - IV, MEMOIRS OF A MACHINE GIRL
https://latorturedestenebres.bandcamp.com/album/iv-memoirs-of-a-machine-girl
On this album, voice and speech samples are also present as the music flows like an incessant wave that destroys everything in its path. The sensation of ascension is really intense, or perhaps it is a descent into the abyss of collective memory, towards that area buried in the depths of our mind, where memories and dreams merge into a matter that builds true reality. . Forgotten melodies, imagined in a remote time, return to us through this sublime music, like a sea of flames of an unknown fury...
LA TORTURE DES TENEBRES - V
New album after a long period. The music remains demanding but truly sublime. It is an experience in itself. The compositions continue to evoke otherworldly interferences. Guitars, voices and drums used to capture a parallel reality, vibrations of an alternative universe... Only Speculative Textural Metal can employ a spell of such power over the listener.
CAREUS
CAREUS - IN ABSENTIA
https://careus.bandcamp.com/album/in-absentia
The melodies are tonal, epic and melancholic, and are subject to a repetition process that immerses us in a dreamlike loop from which it is difficult to escape. The fast arpeggios on the piano accompanied by the blast beats and double bass drum patterns are the platform on which the ghostly voices sing songs that tell us the dark secrets of the one who passes through the effluvia of the last moments of his life to transmute and transmit what that hides on the other side: the unbearable truth of non-being.
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