Goldicot Culls The Week - VIII

by Goldicot

Sat, 8 Mar 2025

Read in 6 minutes

Ihsahn balls

weekly

I spend most of my time now thinking of thesis statements. With every blurb I write there’s two of them – the thesis of the album, often abstracted or obfuscated to the limits of legibility, and my thesis of response, just as obfuscated as the former, but always more confused, less certain of its legitimacy. Since writing is a form of art, and therefore a form of creation, it’s a bit like trying to create an artwork as a response to another artwork, and by doing so I risk not writing about the original subject at all, instead a rambling mental travelogue of my own, dumb, ass. So far, my apparent solution is to be deliriously positive, writing over thirty glowing reviews of albums, only six of which I’ve numerically classified as “good”, and none as better than good. Whether or not this is a dissonance that needs to be resolved, I don’t know. I hope it reads as testament to the appreciation of the difficulty it takes to produce something really worthwhile, while still maintaining a healthy recognition of the superiority of said truly worthwhile, without one diminishing the other, except in the inherent rationality of discrimination. Put another way, I hope it broadcasts a sincere love for art and the dialogue art contains; the conversations worth extracting from that which is not life-changing. Or maybe I just like to hear myself talk and purple prose is good enough in a pinch. Therein lies my two thesis statements, but I don’t know which is which.

One likes to think that art stems from supernatural inspiration, a gift bestowed from another realm, imbued with all the significance inherent in the otherworldly. These things are lies. Art is the product of hard work and dedication, perpetual refinement, sweating out upon the grindstone. Sometimes, in the finished work, you can feel the magnitude of the labor, the overwhelming sense of effort, the influence all the more powerful because of the resolve therein. This is the case with Gold, with influence inscribed on the spine, from their status as minor poet supergroup, to the apparent titular references to Bathory, to the perfected distillation of modern black metal, deathgrind, and authentic ferocity. The digital liner notes make reference to meticulous sessions crammed in the gaps of four busy schedules of veteran craftsmen, a passion project and a labor of love, and it palpably, audibly, achieves a kind of mastery that only comes from the devout hobbyist. It’s the little dashes of malice and glee amid the fury that make Gold come alive, and it is a welcome, though all-too-rare, relief that each section is there for a reason, and that purpose, thankfully, is never in doubt. Now for the hat trick: Philip Anselmo is very good in several different voices, all biting, all dripping, the sharpest point on a well-deserved star.

Maximalism is perhaps the defining characteristic of metal, whatever the vector being maximalized is not important as the extremity it reaches. There’s a wide body of “extreme progressive” metal, where the only real similarity is the amount of kitchen sinks stuffed into an ever-changing container, and the challenge is for artist and audience alike to remain coherent amidst the excessive eccentricities of the mind scramble. Nonetheless you only get a limited amount of tries at the pass before you become just another Mr. Bungle copycat, Liquid Tension Experiment soundalike, Schizoid Lloyd imitator, so on and so forth ad nauseam. Seventh Station has a rather novel solution to the problem: apply the peculiarity maximalism to an existing framework, and turn Shostakovich, Schnittke, Kopetzki, and Villa-Lobos into the wacky goobers they were meant to be. These lively rearrangements dance a strange dance, serious in their humor, laughing in their work, unwinking but with a big smile across the face. The absurdism of the spastic nature is nearly perfectly balanced by the legitimacy of the classicism, perhaps opening a window into the revelry these works would have been received by in their contemporary times, reinvigorating an original raucous nature lost to the march of culture. This too shall pass, but for this brief moment, be in the best of both worlds.

Spawn of Possession returns. Those four words alone are sufficient reason to demand your full attention. A living legend of modern technical death metal they were, at the utmost pinnacle of complexity and difficulty, with impact and catchiness that rivaled simpler acts with contemptuous ease. Incurso is an untouchable monument, a perfect storm of mastery and brutality, commanding asymptomatic glory: the more you try to comprehend, the more unbelievable it is. It could be, may have been, the swansong of the genre – for where else is there to go?

Backwards. Inferring from the new name, three-fourths of the original lineup return with sequels to the precursors, expanded backstories from the chapters before Incurso. And they crush it, leaner and not lighter, slicker and not easier, simpler and not lesser. The trademark moves are polished to their prime, and the best of all of these, their nonstop, universal groove permeating every instance of techno-brilliance and gordian wizardry, has never been better – I assert there is not another act as incomprehensibly technical and yet instantly recognizably enjoyable as Psalmus Mortis is here, what should be, and is, jagged, foreign, and unwieldy, is somehow instead classic headbanging groove par excellence every time. I believe this graceful fluidity stems from the sheer expertise of the performers, despite its bewildering complexity Retromorphosis never sounds particularly technical, playing with an ease that makes it feel real, biological flesh in unfathomable array.

So what place on the pedestal then? A sketch, finally perfected, with the masterpiece already framed? A gold medal in a race with platinum already bestowed? I think, rather, that it is better to think of it as a proof, a demonstration of how much life still remains in a world where perfection came and went, how much water can still be wrought from the rock. The name itself is a tacit acknowledgement of as much, the next step taken in the time before, the next step on the path untaken, and that has made all the difference. There is mastery to be obtained in the annals of history, and Psalmus Mortis is living proof.