ALBUM REVIEW: Entheogen - "Without Veil, Nor Self"

By: Mark Ambrose

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released:08/01/2018

Label: Fallen Empire Records

Each member is so proficient, so confident, and so merciless in their drive to push beyond limits that “Without Veil, Nor Self” stands apart as a truly uncanny, terrifying listen.

“Without Veil, Nor Self” CD//CS//CD//LP track listing

1. Desolation Lyre

2. Sol Genesis

3. Sol Knell

4. Without Veil, Nor Self

5. Lethean Throat

6. Pall

The Review:

Whenever listening to high quality black metal, I keep returning to the classic idea of confrontations with the uncanny: if human beings are presented with something beyond reckoning, they will react with abject terror or sublime astonishment.  While any genre can be loaded with garbage, the glut of mid-tier metal can be disheartening.  And yet I’m consistently confronted by sublime, terrifying new material by masters like Entheogen, who epitomize the uncanny on their debut LP, “Without Veil, Nor Self”.  While the album largely treads in the terrifying, the prowess and ferocity of each member is truly remarkable.

Jack Blackburn’s drumming is, even by black metal standards, mind bending.  The speed and complexity throughout “Without Veil…” is almost incomprehensible, and made my jaw drop more than once, staring at my speakers like they were producing something outside my reckoning of time and space.  On the relatively short “Sol Knell”, Blackburn hammers ferocious double bass blasts that hammers like Gatling gun fire.  Steven Blackburn constructs a symphony of dissonant, layered rhythm guitar, then allows haunting, shimmering leads to glide over the chaos.  Bassist Tiffin cements the whole monstrous endeavor with simple but palpable low end.  On the title track, the gut churning heft of the bass, coupled with Jack’s inhuman drumming and Steven’s chiming, agonized guitars, coalesces until you feel adrift in a churning maelstrom, clinging desperately to life while sinking inexorably towards doom.

Vocalist Alex Poole inhabits a variety of personas on “Without Veil…”, though all of them seem driven by agony, or about to inflict some brutal violence.  Whether a dry, low, ghostly howl like in “Desolation Lyre”, the grim, even intonations of “Sol Knell”, or the piercing, haunted shriek of “Lethean Throat”, each delivery feels intentional.  This consistent element of defying expectation, of allowing beauty to shine through and be instantly eclipsed by brutal pounding mayhem that is what is so exciting about Entheogen.  Each member is so proficient, so confident, and so merciless in their drive to push beyond limits that “Without Veil, Nor Self” stands apart as a truly uncanny, terrifying listen.

“Without Veil, Nor Self” is available here

Band info: bandcamp|| facebook