TEITANBLOOD - DEATH (listening guide)

“Midway upon the journey of our life 

I found myself within a forest dark, 

For the straight-forward pathway had been lost.”

Divine comedy, canto I (Dante Alighieri)

"There was only darkness. It flowed like a black river with no bottom. And it was not bounded by any shore, endless, turbulent and moving aimlessly, without any origin or destination. There was only darkness flowing into darkness."

My Work Is Not Yet Done (Thomas Ligotti)

0. Introduction

The analysis of “Death” is really complex since we are faced with an album whose dimensions and power have few rivals within Extreme Metal. The title of the album, “Death”, makes a double reference to death metal as a style and to death as a conceptual entity, (although now we will see that there is no such terminological separation for Teitanblood, for whom both things are the same).

The differences with “Seven Chalices” are evident and voluntary since Teitanblood is an ambitious band that is not interested in the least in repeating a formula already explored.

- The production: after the impressive production of “Seven Chalices”, where low and cavernous frequencies dominate, in “Death” the band opts for a clearer and sharper sound (always within the parameters of its sound aesthetics). The reason is obvious: speed. While Seven Chalices was full of atmosphere and slow passages, now a huge amount of the album is played at an absolutely unbridled and irrational speed, which requires a production that allows the listener to orient himself minimally among the dizzying succession of riffs and blast beats to which he is going to be subjected.

- The form: the structure of the album, also very long like Seven Chalices, is also determined by speed. Even CG Santos' essential role within the band is modified to adapt to this new requirement. The compositions are still extensive, but while in Seven Chalices there were few riffs per song (in relation to its length), in Death their number increases, reminding us of what albums like Slayer's Reign in Blood or Morbid Angel's Altar of Madness meant. This move by Teitanblood is made with such excessive ambition that Razalas explains that:

“it provoked a response from the main bands within Extreme Metal in this century: Deathspell Omega and Portal. The impact of “Death” was so important that it forced these bands to respond with the densest and most intense sound artifacts of their career: “Ion” (Portal) and “The Synarchy of the Molten Bones” (Deathspell Omega). In fact, the latter could be pushed back to the regions of hyper density and unleashed speed that it already explored in “Fas – Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum”.” (Relgneps Razalas, Metallorum mutatio: Corpus theoreticum, cap. 2 "Pseudomorfosis históricas")

- The instruments role: absolutely determined by the form of the compositions and by the production, the instruments in “Death” have only one objective: to destroy any limit in an implacable way. It is overwhelming to try to glimpse the drive behind the way NSK and J. play their instruments on this album, and when we delve into the lyrics to try to find the answer, we understand that only the cult of ancestors, the classics of the genre and the cult of death could have inspired them to such a high level of madness.

Prepare to attend one of the greatest shows in Extreme Metal. Teitanblood perform here a truly fascinating Speculative Metallurgy work, where they continue their ambitious work of diluting the boundaries between death and black through a fusion of codes and primary symbols of each style, managing to unleash a flow of cabalistic magma that multiplies and mutates according to hidden patterns that we will try to reveal.

1. Anteinfierno

In his “Dictionary of Symbols”, Eduardo Cirlot establishes that the threshold is a symbol of transcendence, which unites and separates the two worlds, the sacred and the profane. Anteinfierno, the title of Death’s first composition, functions as a warning. We are about to cross the threshold and, as Dante writes at the beginning of the Divine Comedy, disorientation will be at its maximum when we enter the “dark forest”.

The beginning of “Death” aspires to be one of the most brutal and shocking extreme music ever created. We will have no chance, no possibility to assimilate what is happening due to its extreme violence. This threshold will be an event (as defined by musicologist Relgneps Razalas) of the greatest importance within the album since it will be referred to on several occasions. And indeed it is. The sonic explosion we are faced with and its immeasurable and colossal brutality leaves us in a state of shock from which we will not recover until long after the album has finished. Teitanblood breaks with the linear narrative, causing a sonic event that prevents a rational analysis of what follows, a blinding event as overwhelming and unbearable as the most intense pages of Mircea Cartarescu's "Blinding" trilogy (those where we are forced to contemplate the unnameable), an event that subjects us to a practically indescribable sensorial experience.

The first 30 seconds of the song are similar to the condensed reproduction of Slayer's complete discography in just half a minute, with all the songs playing simultaneously: an irrational blast beat unleashes rhizomatic vortices on which voices and guitars extend, displaying vanishing points that make us contemplate the entire album simultaneously. The guitar riff is totally subject to the oblique lines unleashed by the lead guitars, which cause a crazy curvature of the high notes with a completely disproportionate handling of the lever by NSK.

At 0:38, we face the first block of riffs with music unleashed at all levels: drums, guitars and voices attack with supreme violence without concessions that takes us back to point 0 at 2:15 with the return of NSK's improbable solos, whose textural and narrative function is of enormous importance in the album, providing more density to the already dense plot. At 2:52 new thematic material is introduced and the aesthetic is closer to Autopsy and Slayer with a minimal drop in intensity that serves to introduce a succession of solos and vocal stanzas that lead us to the climax of the composition at 4:30 with NSK shouting like a madman "Hell before!" After his masterful vocal performance on “Seven Chalices,” NSK continues his deployment of resources here. Although the use of multiple layers continues, the vocals are more focused and somewhat more uniform than on “Seven Chalices” to respond to the faster nature of the compositions on “Death,” with phrasing closer to riffs.

At the end of the track we have CG Santos’ first appearance on the album with a brief foray that serves as a link between songs.

2. Sleeping Throats Of The Antichrist

Voices of the damned, distant percussion and cracked violins lead us to an excellent mid-tempo riff by NSK on bass (0:42). At 1:12 a pair of riffs is introduced and repeated twice. We enter an interesting section (which functions as a chorus in the song) at 2:38 with a solo that evolves over a mid-tempo riff: very long slurs and bends connect with a new block of riffs (3:14) where the voice stands out. At 5:00 the post-chorus section is repeated with another very inspired guitar solo.

At 6:53 new material begins to be introduced and we enter the development section of the song that functions as a bridge and that takes the density of the plot to one of its highest points with even more guttural voices that double to push up the already high intensity.

The influence of Autopsy and Celtic Frost is once again imposed with a new block of riffs under which we begin to perceive the work of CG Santos with the atmospheres and a sample of academic vocal music that extends and contaminates the narrative until we enter the most outstanding moment of the whole song.

After the return of the first riff brilliantly exposed by the drums we are faced with one of the most brilliant guitar riffs in Teitanblood's discography (9:13). NSK invokes the ancestors with a pair of riffs that are repeated while the voices take on a textural role helping to establish a vanishing point towards the outro of the song (11:13) by CG Santos. Deformed voices accompanied by a mournful hurdy-gurdy provide a brief interval of calm before the storm breaks out again:

3. Plagues Of Forgiveness

The first two minutes of “Plagues of Forgiveness” consist of one brutal riff after another accompanied by unleashed drums that launch multiple blast beats. J. is one of the best drummers in extreme metal when it comes to providing that feeling of irrational chaos that reminds us so much of the early days of the genre and here he proves it again.

At 2:20 a bridge appears where the music tends towards noise with the superposition of several layers of guitar and textural voices that vary the discourse briefly before returning to the storm of blast beats (2:40) with voices expanding the madness without mercy. At 3:30 a slow passage is presented composed in an excellent way, deploying the resources in a very intelligent way: a slow riff is further spaced out with a drum that takes control while the voices acquire a declamatory character with one of the best interpretations of NSK in the entire album. The power-chords turn into tremolos and the speed hits us once again (5:05) with an album that is ready to take us to exhaustion, with voices that are sung to the limits of what is human. A guitar solo that borders on noise (5:23) drives the music to a new block of riffs with blast beats that take the song to paroxysm until a truly wild climax. The density reaches its highest point when a textural layer of orchestral voices is added by CG Santos, who from 6:30 will gain prominence as a threatening presence that makes the song turn towards a mid-tempo riff (7:06) with spectacular drums where J. shows his personal style by introducing variations in the cymbals and rhythmic patterns in a section of a solo character that carries the narrative of the discourse while the riff repeats itself tirelessly.

There is still time for one last attack in the form of a hyper-fast blast beat (8:53) to which is added another overlap of guitar solos by NSK in a section that again refers to the beginning of the album, something that is also supported by what the voices sing:

“As it was in the beginning is now, and ever shall be, world without end.”

This verse also makes us appreciate the difficulty that a band has in setting such a high standard of brutality and savagery as Teitanblood do here. It is extremely difficult to provide a continuous interest to the musical discourse and after three songs, Teitanblood demonstrate great imagination and creativity when deploying one resource after another with that simple objective: to burn everything down without leaving anything in its wake. And we will see that there are still surprises to come.

4. Cadaver Synod

“Cadaver Synod” begins with the longest abstract section of the album so far, in clear contrast to how the previous track ended. CG Santos employs a palette of timbral resources similar to the one he will explore in more depth in “The Baneful Choir” (2019). A low pulse serves as the basis for the rest of the elements, where the inverted voices stand out and become a mist from which the first riff of the track (0:50) is manifested, which has an introductory character and a classic thrash metal intro aesthetic a la Slayer (“Black Magic” comes to mind).

At 2:30, the first block of riffs emerges, exploding with a very fast blast beat, to which is added an extensive guitar solo that returns us to the chaos of the beginning of the album, referring again to that explosion in a way that breaks with the linear narrative of the album, forcing us to contemplate a fractal structure that tends towards an unbearable abyssal vortex.

That beginning of the album, that genesis of irrational chaos exerts such an irresistible gravitational force that none of the compositions on the album can stray too far from it. We see this again and again throughout this track. The first example of this situation arises at 3:07: the track continues to advance with a new block of riffs but a rhizomatic connection is established again with that primordial explosion with unhinged voices that have no other option than to transmit the unspeakable with NSK spitting out “the grave of time”, which is exactly what this album seems to be, an artifact created to swallow time and destroy it.

From 4:50 onwards, previous material is re-exposed, although with variations, as is usual in Teitanblood's style, preparing for the umpteenth explosion driven by J.'s blast beats, who must have lost all connection with reality while interpreting this album. The percussive attack is relentless, disorienting, accompanied by NSK's infinitely variable tremolo riffs where past and future intersect and overlap producing a tangled set of aberrant lines that lead to one of the most sublime demonstrations of what the hyperstitional art of speculative metallurgy is all about.

At 7:05 the vocals undergo a dramatic change as they switch languages, this time to Latin where NSK declaims:

“Quemadmodum et sperma nonnulli forum emittunt et vermes quondam spermate procreant.”

The synod of corpses advances and the music itself accompanies this with a more martial air: drums with more classic double bass drum patterns accompany tremolo riffs with an aesthetic that reminds us again of the wildest Slayer.

And so we reach the climax from 8:43. The textural density is at its maximum and the chaos brought by the conjunction of voices, solos and drums is almost impossible to bear at this point in the album. We are facing the last referential explosion of this song. Teitanblood has spread its spell and caused the destruction of the possible future resurrection after the apocalypse:

“And on the final day the graves were opened and none rose therefrom.”

This excessive ambition of the band is transferred to the sound of CG Santos in the outro (9:50) whose legion of dying hurdy-gurdies spin and spin, creak and twist with effort expressing the absolute emptiness that this wasteland transmits after such a battle.

A group of voices in Spanish closes the song at 11:00 singing “for ever and ever, amen.”

5. Unearthed Veins

This is the shortest track on the album, which still includes quite a few compositional surprises.

It begins with a slow riff that builds a skeleton of power chords while the drums carry the narrative weight developing a succession of arrangements excellently composed by J. It is worth highlighting the arrangements of the high guitars, a true novelty so far in Teitanblood's discography by NSK in the way of harmonizing, arpeggiating and using open high strings.

Some sampled voices enter at 1:11 while the drums continue to build their discourse, managing the display of the tension of the song that is unleashed at 1:40 with a dense, mid-tempo percussion pattern, textural voices and a tremolo riff. All this accumulation of elements is resolved with the entry of a new riff at 2:15 that plays with the variation in the pulse. High-pitched wah-wah guitars serve as a link to what is perhaps the core of “Death”: at 2:50 the music slows down despite the textural density and then deep, guttural vocals arrive, invoking the hidden motto of the album. NSK begins to repeat with ritualistic intent the four words that appear on the album artwork: TOMB, VEIN, KHEM, RITE. Let's analyze it in detail, according to Razalas:

"The four words appear arranged in the form of a "magic square." Although this arrangement has multiple interpretations, one of them is related to the occult, since certain information would be hidden in the square in an encrypted form that would serve to invoke an entity. Since the album is titled "Death," and all the lyrics describe a complex cosmogony of the chthonic, the underworld and its hidden forces, the conclusions are there. The reference specifically to the four words draws a complex imagery of the occult. "Khem" alludes to one of the names that Egypt received in antiquity, to the black earth, in relation to fertility but also to the land where alchemy was born, the science of the occult and the dark arts. In alchemy, complex and dark procedures forbidden to the neophyte are described where metals are manipulated, which is exactly what Teitanblood is doing here: "Death" in a ritual where speculative metallurgy is practiced to "To mold metal and obtain a new element, a style in this case. From the union of black and death, from the transmutation of their primary elements, from the displacement of the axis of perspective, a hybrid is obtained, an unspeakable mutation. Teitanblood's style combines, through dark procedures, the primary symbols of each style to open a crack in reality and access unknown and unexplored regions with an inexplicable vehemence and recklessness that is only proper to the most faithful followers." (Relgneps Razalas, Metallorum mutatio: Corpus theoreticum, cap. 2 "Pseudomorfosis históricas") 

The album itself is the ritual that obtains its knowledge from the land of Khem and that unleashes the veins, unearths them from the tomb where they lay hidden, the veins of that entity that is death and to which the band pays tribute: TOMB, VEIN, KHEM, RITE… Unearthed Veins… ad infinitum…

6. Burning In Damnation Fires

The first riff opens the track with a blast beat that is intensified from 0:47 onwards. From here NSK begins a vocal duel with Chris Reifert, the legendary drummer and vocalist of Autopsy. The band to which tribute is paid once again colonizes Teitanblood with riffs and drums with a clearly “old school death metal” aesthetic. Once again Teitanblood shows one of its primary symbols as a band: moving forward by going backwards. A curious detail is that in this section you can hear some extra cymbals on the left channel (which are added to the main drum track), who knows if they were recorded by Reifert himself.

The blast beat at 2:57 accompanies a new increase in textural density that returns to a connection with the beginning of the album. From 3:40 new thematic material is incorporated with a development function until we reach 4:23, where the shadow of Autopsy once again extends its influence with a slow riff that slows down even more at 5:00. The power chords fall like heavy bells while high guitars complete the harmonization with resources very similar to those of the previous track. The harmonic skeleton is now exposed in tremolo while the high guitars transform into a riff, a resource that reminds us of the one used at the end of the second track of “Seven Chalices”. An almost spoken voice contributes to adding a ritualistic atmosphere being the element that serves as a link with the next section, in which the blast beats and speed return (6:55) taking us to the climax of the track marked by the duel of voices between Reifert and NSK.

It is CG Santos who takes over, materializing in the sound plane the fires invoked by the lyrics for the outro that serves as a link with…

7. Silence Of The Great Martyrs

The dark, oppressive calm atmosphere established by CG Santos (reminiscent of his compositions on “Seven Chalices”), with an excellent interweaving of vocals, extends at the beginning of this track until a guitar plot breaks through at 0:45. Its sharp production links back to those used in tracks 5 and 6. The calm exposition of a textural riff serves as an introduction to what is the last and longest track on the album, where the excessive ambition that Teitanblood has as a band when it comes to composing a work that transcends all limits is once again shown.

At 1:28 NSK conjures all the energies accumulated throughout the album to launch a brutal riff that accumulates tension for more than forty seconds by adding more layers of guitar and bass, as well as having a deeper tone reminiscent of “Seven Chalices”. The blast beat at 2:12 sets in motion the destructive vortex that is Teitanblood. The return to “Seven Chalices” is also appreciated in the arrangements and variations of J. on the turntables and with the more evident use of effects on the voice, which are also interpreted without adhering so much to the phrasing of the riffs. All this contributes to that feeling of lack of control, of irrational chaos that Teitanblood achieves in an incomparable way in extreme metal.

At 3:17 new elements and variations are added to a blast beat that does not reduce its destructive advance and that uses material from previous riffs in a rhizomatic and disorienting structure to invoke that madness that oozes throughout the album.

New riffs are added at 4:49 and 5:10 in a true tour de force, a maelstrom in which we are forced to contemplate its malignant central vortex.

At 5:35 an excellent hyper slow riff appears, which will be the last attack of the album with an excellent primitive and effective drum arrangement. The appearance of a textural layer of vocals tells us that the ritual is over. The traditional instruments are removed and we are going to face a process of sonic deterritorialization as only Teitanblood can do. An eerie silence at 7:10 causes a crack in linear chronological time and breaks with the previous paradigm. After a relentless attack since the beginning of the album, NSK and J. withdraw, having fulfilled their mission. Death has been summoned and will reign supreme. Now we only have to listen to how its presence sounds, ominous and ubiquitous. We are facing the silence of the great martyrs and Teitanblood is going to show what distinguishes them from the rest.

This very long outro, with a length of almost ten minutes, is not a traditional outro that serves to close an album but goes much further. The presence of CG Santos, which had been less noticeable in “Death” than in “Seven Chalices”, now spreads unstoppably to give us a truly inspired composition: mournful bells, distant piano chords that spread like a plague that, together with the strings of the hurdy-gurdies, create a diffuse and indefinite harmony. At 10:27, dark layers of voices with a Gregorian aesthetic are added, which take over the sound discourse, increasing the ceremonial sensation. From 12:35, the tension increases even more with the entry of a new layer of voices. After a silence parallel to the one that opens this final section, at 15:35 the first voices of this outro return, calmly leading us to the final piano chord.

There are several ways to analyze the length of the end of “Silence Of The Great Martyrs” which is also the end of “Death”. It is a compositional decision that separates Teitanblood from the rest of the bands. As Razalas explains in his Metallorum mutatium (chap. 5.2, "El horizonte geográfico"):

"The speculative metallurgy procedure that the band applies here provokes a process of deterritorialization. A line of flight takes us away from the terrain of what has been established throughout the album to distant and abstract regions, dominated by a plot where the pulse disappears and the margins begin to dominate in contrast to the center, where nomadism and atmospheric flows dwell, where horizontal frequencies prevail over vertical resonances. The unleashed speed, that which has dragged us relentlessly through a vortex of irrationality and madness, finally stops and what remains is… a shocking rupture in the sound fabric. The lines of articulation that had drawn vanishing points that unfolded at the speed of light to raise a temple of indescribable resonances, are diluted to make us penetrate a viscous region of liminal flows where nebulous and metaphysical textures reign. The temple, the organism, has been destroyed and the intensity is transformed into an unquantifiable abstraction."

Finally, the dark rhizome spreads, connecting any point with another in an unpredictable and fascinating way. The album ends. The known territory is left behind. Now only a speculative cartography will allow us to orient ourselves in these unexplored regions, towards the absolute.