Fas - Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum

It's not so easy to describe how the mysterious French project Deathspell Omega pushed the black metal genre to its ultimate borders, and even beyond, in a territory never explored before and still unmatched by others. It's true that, following the widespread trend of black metal, in the early 2000s, the band started as a homage to the Darkthrone's fashion-like style, thus resulting in an effective and excellent reinterpretation of Norwegian black metal in its rawest form. However, at a certain point, in 2004, Deathspell Omega dared to put their personal signature to the genre with their third effort "Si Monvmentvm Reqvires, Circvmspice": a ritualistic, ceremonial-like sound, deep and dense in its low-end frequencies’ emphasis, and with a completely different approach to the lyrical content. No more blasphemous statements or provoking Devil worship for the sake of being anti-social, but an orthodox, theistic and philosophical dissertation around the obscure matter.

All the previous typical black metal cliché appeared, retrospectively, a little bit childish and superficial: everything suddenly entered a way more serious and rigorous, interesting treatment. Retaining a feral and violent musical vehemence, this French act also introduced technical proficiency and exquisite musicianship in their proposal and in the whole genre: no more minimalistic melodies with a basic octave-based harmonic context, but a sophisticated taste for challenging interval juxtapositions, with a particular focus on dissonance. Courageous diminished 5th and 2nd intervals, along with 7th chord shapes were injected in their phrasings, even daring to put unpleasant harmonies on strong, down-beat accents. The sense of discomfort and distress was never so evident and palpable in a black metal environment.

Great musicianship and amazing compositional skills are no more features of, let's say, jazz-infused technical death metal, or progressive metal: they are now a consistent part of this new kind of black metal. Micro-labelling started to spread uncontrolled: religious, orthodox, avant-garde progressive dissonant black metal? By my point of view, it's still, basically speaking, black metal, maybe of a "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas" or "Wolf's Lair Abyss" quality and breed, but developed in an extremely articulated manner. And then, "Fas - Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum" was released, in 2007: only 4, long, progressive suite-like compositions that brought the style of the band at its peak. There are no more unresolved melodic phrases, as there's no melody left at all. Black metal, in its purest form, not the symphonic variation, was deliberately broken in thousands sharp slivers and then all is scattered all around, like in an explosion.

The soundscape of chaos, the symphony of the fall of the light-bearer, the supreme and sublime dissonance against all order and harmony: if this is still black metal, it's the thing in itself. No need for labels, just BLACK METAL, in capital letters. There's no room for harmonic resolution, and there's no time to breathe through impossible blast-beats, performed even in odd-time signatures. When the storming rhythmic and disharmonic assault takes a stop, then a gloomy, obscure and menacing atmosphere permeates the sonic space, even with a dense, disturbing almost silent sections. This is black metal art! This is the most violent and upsetting music you can imagine, and it's all here, in a 46 minutes long masterpiece. Perfection at its highest peak, and then, from that height, a frenzied downfall.

It's just not enough to say that Deathspell Omega's fourth commercially released full-length is great, nor is it enough to say it's a masterpiece of black metal. To borrow from the band themselves a song off of their Drought EP, this album is an abrasive swirling musk of unsettling corporeal madness. It's unapproachable. It's complex beyond any measure of complexity. It's impossibly fast. It's philosophical. It's boundary testing, patience testing, sanity testing, sense testing - it's unwelcoming and unpleasant.

And I love every second of it.

Going into this record directly after the fantastic, but flawed Si Monvmentvm Reqvires, Circvmspice, I didn't know what to expect other than a continued pummeling of my very lofty expectations upon closing out the first part of what I called "The Unholy Trilogy." While Si Monvmentvm... had fantastically gratuitous moments in overwhelming abundance ("Sola Fide I" and "Carnal Malefactor," anyone?), it did have its fair share of filler tracks that could be skipped or removed altogether. But at the same time, I believed that omitting any of the songs would've thrown a wrench in the gears of the message DsO was pushing, which was clothed in dark Theistic Satanist robes. An omission would serve as a compromise to Deathspell's philosophy, so they had to keep every song they had written and composed, even at the risk of having an overly long and bloated album. So in the end, I'm just being kinda selfish.

2007 is when Deathspell Omega hit their creative zenith with this album. According to the band, this marks the second part of their Unholy Trilogy, which, when all three albums were put together, would serve to be a "theological dispute on the divine essence of the Devil, the roles and virtues of faith and the place of man therein."

What this album does is answer the question if there could ever exist a near perfect record. It's not often I find an album that meets that criteria, but here comes Deathspell Omega to prove me very, very wrong. A frightening sense of isolation exists throughout this album from the spacious ambiance of the both "Obombration" songs, to the uneasy churning muck of the 11-minute monster "The Repellent Scars of Abandon & Election," to the petrifying silence that starts halfway through "The Shrine of Mad Laughter," each song is a part of a larger journey this album takes you on, particularly to underscore the unabashed horror of the Christian religion and its hypocrisy so bare and naked. All the while, the slower parts are adequately complemented by the performances of the band members. Those moments of calm, though they give a brief moment of solace, promulgate the utter destruction of whatever faith the poor souls who listened to this had, now being sucked away into a black void of nothingness.

If this album or any of the albums with Mikko Aspa are any indication (with maybe the exception of Si Monvmentvm...), I can see why Deathspell Omega refuses to play live. This is some unbelievably complex shit for black metal. It's not technical black metal, but I could see people making a good argument for whoever drums on this is one of the best drummers in black metal. Listening to him keep up with these insane, incomprehensible time and tempo changes is more than commendable. It's honorable and humbling. Going from calm progressive drumming to impossible kit destruction in less than a fraction of a second is one hell of a feat. Coming in right behind him is guitarist Hasjarl, who's guitar lines are disgustingly fast and dissonant to the point where there's almost no melody, yet still coming across as being so memorable. So many chords and riffs are just instantly stuck in your head the instant you hear them, like the riff that opens "Bread of Bitterness" or partway through "The Repellent Scars of Abandon & Election." My favorite moment is near the end of "A Chore for the Lost" when he delivers these series of melodic riffs that couldn't make the song any more amazing than the rest of the songs here. Like how the hell does Hasjarl conjure up these infernal riffs? I can imagine from a cosmic black hole of from the deepest, most bottomless pit ever made. Khaos' bass lines are surprisingly clear when taking into consideration how this album is mixed and how everything seemingly mushes together in a blurring wall of noise. They shine through in the chaos, can be heard just fine, and are just as memorable as the guitar riffs.

The album ends with the second "Obombration," which I learned after looking it up was taken from the Latin word, "obumbrare," which translates to mean "shadow," or obumbrationem, which means "overshadowing," which is perfect as both open and bookend the album. The albums philosophical undertones come to a head with this closer. After everything you've heard, after all the chaos, the insanity, the unmitigated, unbridled syncope this album caused, you'd expect the closer would give you ample time to catch your breath and regain your discombobulated mental state. If you were naive enough to think such a thing, then Deathspell Omega are far smarter than you. What would you expect other than a dissonant piano playing softly in the background while horns play, slowly growing louder and louder as the paranoid claustrophobia sets in? The ending forces you to confront your deepest chasm of fears, to see with your own eyes the unearthly beasts of formless darkness, and leaves you unfathomably broken to the core of the threshold of your soul. And as you pick the pieces of yourself up to put back together again, you sit there wondering to yourself, "What?"

This album will take you on an experience you've never been on before. Musically, it's probably the most unpredictable thing I've ever listened to in my life. Forty-six minutes of pure terror, consternation, dread, anxiety, and horror. The realities of some of the darkest corners of our world can only be as shaking as this album. Every song is a testament to the evil of man, the futility of theocracy and religion, the intelligence of thinking for oneself, and the reverential devotion of the horned lord of Hell.

Every genre of metal has its perfect album or its near-perfect albums. Peace Sells...But Who's Buying?; Biomech; Left Hand Path; Nespithe; Nightfall; Dead As Dreams; In the Nightside Eclipse. Black metal has Fas - Ite, Maledicti, In Agnem Aeternum, and it's perfect. I'll go so far to add it's not only one of the best black metal albums ever made, it's one of the best albums ever made.

Period.

I'll try my best to summarize the impossible, ravaging chaos that this album as a whole is.

So, after years of listening Death metal, I decided to search for something new, something that actually catched my attention and never let go of me. Something unpredictable, that sounded impossible. And then I was blessed with the discovery of Gorguts' third album, Obscura. Since then, a whole new world has been shown to me, the world of chaotic,dissonant, yet meticulous guitarwork.

But not even that would prepare me for the beast that this album is.

I remember finding Deathspell Omega years ago in this same website. And after the aforementioned discovery, I remembered this band and realised that, much like Gorguts (and coincidentally, in the third album as well), they had changed their style to "Avant-garde Black Metal". My curiosity led me to listen to the first work in their metaphysical trilogy, Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice. I have to admit that, while the album is a significant improvement, in both guitarwork and sound, it still felt like they could go even beyond that.

So then I decided to listen to this album, which for many fans of this band represents the greatest achievement in both the band's career and in black metal in general.

Beginning (and ending) with the track Obombration (which, as another reviewer cited, is an invented word derived from the term "Obumbrare", which means "To overshadow"), this album will be the most jarring, hellish, caothic and apocaliptic 46 minutes of your life. Obombration, with it's doomy, sinister riff that repeats to the very end its just a preparation to a hurricane of madness.

And then, the following track comes, and from there on, you cannot turn back.

Fas - Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum is the most terrifying, abrassive album I have heard in my life. The maniacal speed, the impossible riffs, the first line delivered by vocalist Mikko Aspa in The Shrine of Mad Laughter is enough to describe this album. You'll have no breathing room, no moment to relax, no time to try and discern what the fuck are they playing. Just pure, unfathomable chaos.

This rollercoaster of insanity will continue with barely any rest for your ears to have. Every track, despite being mostly ravaging dissonance at work, has its own identity. Some starting slower only to go maniacal in mere moments, others starting with a jazzy-like clean guitar and others featuring different vocal harmonies amidst the chaos. Curiously, some tracks feature weird guitar solos, buried under the crushing wall of noise of their respective tracks. And then, as the album reaches its end, a dreadful piano plays, while some kind of orchestral sound accompanies Aspa's final lines, only to all of them to go in complete silence.

And so it ends, and you can finally catch your breath, relax, and think about what you just heard.

The pit from where Hasjarl summons his riffs is bottomless, if what he plays can even be considered to be "riffs". The bass, while having some shining moments, is mostly buried under this crushing wall of sound. Mikko Aspa, the vocalist and the only band member whose identity is know, delivers a mostly growled vocal style throughout the album than the high-pitched vocals commonly known in black metal (if this can be called black metal) & the drummer, whoever it is, is downright inhuman in its execution, keeping up blast-beats for what seems like an eternity while delivering fills everytime possible.

If there a reason why I say that the first line said by Mikko Aspa in "Shrine..." describes this album its because this album is terrifying, from start to finish. There shall be no rest for you as long as you listen to this in its entirety. It requires plenty of listens to understand most of the action taking place, but the feeling of dread, hopelessness and despair remain as intact as the first time you listened to it.

And aside from describing the album perfectly, it can very well summarize how insignificant most black metal bands feel when compared to Deathspell Omega.

God of Terror
Very low dost Thou bring us
Very low hast Thou brought us.

The road to hell may be paved with good intentions, but for all their rebellious sincerity, it is rare that a black metal band comes close to delivering a substantial counter-argument against Christianity and religious hegemony. The Satan-hailing blasphemy often comes off as a gimmick, and in none but the most inspired cases does a black metal band carry the intellectual weight to back up their ideological claims. And even if someone managed to intellectually transcend the adolescent 'kvlt' and form a Satanic treatise worthy of critique, crafting the art to uplift it is a whole other matter. From Hildegaard von Bingen to Arvo Pärt and everything between and before, Man has created works to honour God. It would seem that musicians in black metal would have the odds stacked against them. The 'Satanic panic' is decades since over, and an increasingly secular society has closed many people off to the prevailing religious thought, let alone a fringe spirituality like true Satanism.

Deathspell Omega's Fas - Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum came virtually out of nowhere in that regard. Although the liturgical spiel on their previous album Si Monvmentvm Requires, Circvmspice introduced an intellectually tangible inversion of Catholic mythology, it wasn't until this album that DSO were finally making music worthy of rivalling sacred traditions, and-- dare I say it-- rivalling the greatest sacred works of Bach or Handel through sheer force of their mirror-image dissonance. There's no clear origin from which to directly trace the shape and effect of this album; arguably besides The Ruins of Beverast, none other than Deathspell Omega have managed to effectively galvanize the black metal genre into something comparable with the world's greatest erudite art. Fas - Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum stands as black metal's greatest testament, and so it shall remain for the ever-foreseeable future.

The word 'dissonance' has lost its power when speaking of Deathspell Omega; objectively speaking, it is applicable to the album's brushfire chaos, but simply calling DSO's music 'dissonant' fails to mention how masterfully they harness that power. I've even seen this album's wonton passages referred to as 'noise'-- again, this only infers a surface-level appreciation of the music. The first "Obombration" (an invented term, by the way, derived for the latin root "to overshadow") conjures a jazz-accented control over its ugliness, building ominously atop its Orthodox soundscape. It's impossible not to feel startled by the instantaneous eruption that sparks "The Shrine of Mad Laughter". The guitars frantically buzz away, the drums seem to be in an amphetamine-induced fervour of their own making, and Aspa's vocals presence enough to fill the farthest corners of a cathedral if the occasion ever called for it. If you're a fresh listener to this album, it doesn't matter how attentive or open-minded you are; the music will flurry past your ears like a fucking sandstorm. There is not the capacity in humans to pick everything up at once. For my own experience of it, I was at once shocked-- even terrified-- but I felt myself hard-pressed to pick out memorable ideas at first. My grasp of the music was initially limited to what I understood to be movements in the music: haunted oases of churchyard atmosphere flung amidst indecipherably dense aggression. Like all but the most popular Western classical music, the brain takes a few repeated listens before you start to see how the pieces fit together.

Although I'd never presume to posit an appreciation for Fas as a measuring stick for good taste in black metal, I get the impression many of the people who dislike this album didn't get past the stage of initial confusion. This is quite understandable. Even as an ardent fan of this album for years, I find myself hesitant to return to it after going some time without listening to it. Unlike Si Monuvmentvm or its near-equally good 2010 successor Paracletus, there's no way to extract a single song from Fas to enjoy it on its own. Nor is there a way to half-attend to listen, lest the album buzz past with all but the broadest strokes having escaped you. Recently returning to listen to Fas, I am reminded how much melody and beauty (albeit subtle) is available to the listener upon deconstructing the music. Though you may not notice it when approaching the music as a whole, Hasjarl's guitarwork incorporates unlikely melodies and harmonies, and many of them are deceptively beautiful. Contrary to the word of its detractors, none of the dissonance on Fas is for its own sake. With parts like the jazz-from-hell intro to "A Chore for the Lost", I get the strange impression that Fas was originally beautiful music that was bastardized with a sense of nagging unease. There is a familiarity of classical music to DSO's craft here, but it is an aberrant mutation from that foundation at its closest. Closing the album with a faux-orchestra on the second "Obombration", that impression is compounded. It makes sense that a legitimately Satanic form of sacred music would mirror the form of its hegemonic equivalent, but achieve its ends through a very different set of means.

In an imposing sense, Fas - Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeturnum is a realization of a promise the early black metal pioneers made two decades prior to its release. If black metal is often too primitive to contest Christianity in any but a pigheaded rebellious sense, Deathspell Omega took the genre to its natural conclusion here. It's strange to think that nearly a decade has passed now since Fas was unveiled to the world; if it came out today, or a decade from now, it would still shock those who came upon it. That, in spite of the countless followers they've inspired in the years since. How many albums can be mentioned that retain their cutting-edge impression even months (let alone years) after they're available for the public's digestion? DSO created one of the boldest testaments in modern music of any genre with this album, and I think the rest of this feeble scene is still trying to catch up.

After releasing the first installment of their conceptual trilogy, Deathspell Omega laboured on some split albums and the well known "Kenose" EP. Even though "Kenose" was different from 2004's "Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice", still the greatest portion of its compononents was held by the classic black metal riffage that the band had displayed until then. Thus it is rather easy to understand why "Fas-Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum" gained such a reputation. Bashed by some as worthless noise and lauded by others as one of the bravest moves that any bad ever dared to make in the metal scene.

At first listen, "Fas..." will indeed boggle the listener's mind and ears. Its structure is audacious, morbid and wretched, while the lyrics are breathtaking. As an important note, you must know that, "Fas..." is not the album would listen to just to have a good time. You must actually focus on the album. Do not be distracted by anything else, for as long as it plays or else, you will just see this as worthless noise as well. You have to let the album invade your system in order to grasp its meaning, but do not think that you will understand it right away. Take your time with it, listen to it again and again, but most importantly; spend time on trying to understand it.

"Fas..." is a groundbreaking album. In fact it is one of the most groundbreaking albums of the 21st century. The music hovers on the brink of pure chaos, yet there are some common musical structures retained in it. For example, there are some moments where calm, slow passages appear, accompanied by mid-paced drumming and steady bass lines. Other than that, in "Fas..." there are also long periods of silence, or, better, long periods of gentle yet dissonant ambient sounds such as an atonal piano or something that sounds like whistling(?)...

However, the greatest part of the album consists of ravaging guitar work by Hasjarl who follows no rules and just denies any conventional and overused rhythm pattern, spawning forth riffs that will make your eyes roll backwards. The obscure, thick and multilayered guitar lines of his, are enough to make this album a must-have, yet DSO doesn't stop here. Khaos delivers a crushing performance, with crushing bass lines that at times slow down and just take the lead for a while ("A Chore for the Lost"). They range from steady and simple riffs, to furious and intense playing. The drums, programmed or not- that remains unknown, are one of the album's most distinctive points. Their wretched style, which functions perfectly for an album like "Fas...", contains extensive use of blast-beats, totally random savage hits of the bass drum and snare drum, while at some points the drums even play slowly and quite steadily following the lead of Khaos' bass and the subtle strumming of the guitar strings of Hasjarl. There are also guitar solos in "Fas...", something that you don't come across easily in black metal albums. They mostly sound like shredding, yet they're not built in usual scales, but just dissonant, fastly picked harmonies of two guitars that create terrifying atmospheres. They are included in the songs "The Shrine of Mad Laughter", "The Repellent Scars of Abandon and Election" and "A Chore for the Lost".

The production here is great, yet there are few things holding it from being perfect. First of all the drums are way too loud, resulting in a somewhat 'drowned' guitar sound. Combined with the eccentric structuring of each composition, the guitar riffs can't be easily heard, while at some points, they are completely inaudible. The vocals and the bass are exactly where they should be. The ambience, while being quiet, adds to the unbelievable atmosphere of the album. Generally the producer of the album did a spectacular job, but he could have done it slightly better. Perhaps the band wanted the album to sound that way, I don't know.

If DSO's lyrics until now, seemed hard to understand, then grasping the meaning of the lyrics in "Fas..." is a task of such difficulty, that it would require years of struggle to complete. They are written in the fashion of an essay. The band, influenced by the work of French writer Georges Bataille and especially his well known essay; "Inner Experience" , composed a long text, where they express many philosophical questions about the nature of evil in man, paraphrasing Batailles' essays ("Inner Experience" and "My Mother") in many cases. It is known that the trilogy explores the relationships between God, Satan and Man. In "Fas...", the band further explores the nature of Satan as a metaphysical entity, since, according to Deathspell, all other interpretations of Satan are intellectually invalid. Mikko Aspa's performance is top-notch as well. The Finnish vocalist screams every line exactly as he should. He uses a great range of different vocal styles such as shrieked vocals, growls and even some operatic (!) vocals in "A Chore for the Lost".

It is in tracks like "The Shrine of Mad Laughter", where the band displays its recently acquired ability of extremely complex and long compositions, as well as horrifying dissonant riffs like the one that slowly fades in after a long ambient breakdown in the middle of the song . Their post-rock and punk influences are mostly shown in "Bread of Bitterness", the shortest song in "Fas..." after the two "Obombration" songs which open and close the album. The dissonant riffage is once again shown in "The Repellent Scars of Abandon and Election", the longest song in here. However the most amazing track in "Fas..." is without a doubt "A Chore for the Lost", a song which features many changes and one amazing outro riff that, unfortunately, doesn't last long.

In conclusion, "Fas..." is an unparallelled masterpiece of dense dark and horrifying music, or even better; art. This is so much more than just simple music. Its avant-garde structures will challenge your mind. Once you're sucked in the world of "Fas...", you can't get out before the album is over. The soundscapes and images presented in it, as well as the really interesting depiction of Lucifer's fall, by the amazing artist, Timo Ketola add up to the dark environment that will surround you when you start your journey in the chaotic universe of this masterpiece. "Fas..." also started a sonic revolution, since it questioned the value of following norms without being able to revolutionize in your field of expertise. There is no musical equivalent to "Fas..." and the shock it will cause to you and your perception of dark art. And if the third part of the trilogy wasn't "Paracletus", then "Fas..." would be a 10/10. This album is not an album you will just listen to. It's an album that you have to experience.

Favorite tracks: Once again, every one of them.

98/100.

I wrote a review on Deathspell Omega's previous release "Si Monumentum Requires Circumspice" a few years back and lauded the new sound and interesting path chosen by the band, particularly when comparing the intelligence of the lyrics, musical complexity, and general power of the record. It really is a great example of how to straddle the line of just enough, and too much. It is a titration, of sorts, and if you add to much of one element to the mix, the experiment is ruined. Unfortunately, the "bright" future (for lack of a better word) that I saw in the first part of the trilogy was dashed upon the floor, and I came crashing back to reality.

There is not much difference here than there was in Si Monumentum. There is still "intelligent" satanism at work, in that it is not mindless "Hail Satan"-this, and upside down cross-that. There's a method to the madness lyrically, but is it really any better than an "unblack" metal record? I beg to say no, which is why I despise the theistic Satanism movement. What is the difference between that and Christianity? Granted they are on the opposite side of the coin, but one is still worshiping something that doesn't exist, in my opinion, or needs a level of faith (or unfaith, or whatever an anti-Christian would have) similar to that whose premise they are opposed to. Along with the lyrics, is the dissonance and "progressive" nature of the music itself. This is the main issue, along with minor issues with vocals which will be discussed later, but this is the main detractors from the album.

Musically, there are no real riffs. It is mad noodling, and strange chord progressions that make my head spin. The fact that this album is so dark in it's subject matter, that the music is so light is an issue. There is not a high amount of heavy crunching riffs. The album is mainly composed of "math-y" single note hammerings, and it becomes dizzying, and nauseating after the first two tracks. For all intents and purposes, this album is the black metal version of Dillinger Escape Plan. It's complex enough to those who are into black metal that doesn't sound like it was recorded in someone's closet, yet has enough of that Satanic flair to make the anti-Christians salivating for more. Unfortunately, this barrage of seemingly random notes and chords are book-ended by complete silence. Yes, silence. This is not the silence of a pregnant pause, it is not the silence of artistic impression, trying to instill in the listener a sense of foreboding and importance. This is the silence, for well, the sake of it. Because Deathspell Omega's magnum opus has deemed them worthy of the ability to do no wrong, they will do whatever the fuck they want. There are no prayers, small interludes to break up the sensory overload of what you have just aurally witnessed. It is a clusterfuck of noise that has no beauty or interest, coupled with slamming an equally jarring anti-noise in there, just to confuse and dazzle the listener more. This album has the feel of a street magician. Don't worry, folks. It's all just smoke and mirrors, and that man behind the curtain is Aspa himself.

I think what pisses me off about this the most, is the fact that at least in Si Monumentum there was a semblance of trying to make a point. There seems to be the complete lack of that here. For one thing, Mikka's vocals are the exact same. He is just growling into the microphone, and due to the lack of substance in what is going on behind the vocalist, there is the absolute nadir of power. The drumming is just as mind-numbing as the music (if that's what it's supposed to be). There are blasts beyond comprehension, insane fills, and paired with the seemingly random guitar passages, has (once again) the aura of impressive talent. I have to admit, I was pretty dazzled at first, but after I took a close look at what is going on, it hit me like a ton of bricks.

This album is a cleverly disguised pop album. One of the telling signs of this for me (as I am deathly allergic to pop-anything), was the sheer amount of dread that I had to overcome just to listen to this again in order to write this review. It's so much more difficult to do, now that I've had some time to allow the novelty of the album to wear off. Now I am left looking at the pieces of this shattered "masterpiece" and trying to gather my thoughts as to what the fuck happened. It's like coming down from a bad trip, or waking up after getting so shitfaced drunk you don't remember leaving the bar only to wake up in your bed. Worse yet, I actually succumbed to the "interesting ideas" panned by the folks at Deathspell Omega, and it was definitely due to the album preceding it, which I wholly enjoyed. This was just a case of tunnel vision; falling desperately in puppy-love with the most popular cheerleader in high school, only to find out she is one of the most raging cunts you have ever met. That's what I am trying to portray, the horror and repulsion of coming to the realization that this is a house of cards about to topple over.

Fas is just a candy coated, steaming pile of aural shit that I cannot believe I thought was "awesome". At any time of my musical endeavors. I feel like the kid who was told that the Easter Bunny doesn't exist, and that it's just my parents going to CVS and buying out the candy aisle. Fas is a boring, bloated, tangled mass of muddled ideas that I feel offended to have had Deathspell Omega pass this off to me and tell me it was gold. Once you're wise, pyrite won't fool anyone.

Finally, I wish to instill in the listener a sense of urgency to refrain from drinking this particular Kool-aid. Trust me, because if you want to listen to a 40 minute album that makes you feel ten years older after plowing through it, feel numb and washed out as if you just got over a serious bout of the flu, or feel completely gutted of emotion as if you popped 10 ecstasy pills and your dopamine dump has left you in an emotional well with no way out.... This is your album. Completely lacking of focus, direction, or musical integrity, you will feel bamboozled, and don't say I didn't warn ya.

“Fas…” is, in the simplest way I can put it, a musical achievement. It is an audacious plunge into a world comprised of naturally diametrical elements. Deceitful silences only seek to accentuate the vehement fury which stealthily prowls close by. “Fas…” differs much from its predecessors in stylistic approach and many elements from prior works have either been abandoned entirely or refined to the point of sheer genius. Long gone are any traces of standard black metal. Instead, there is only a turbid, and at times, frightening, monstrosity.

During the moments when the album is unleashing a plentitude of technical drumming, equally technical guitars flit nimbly about to add even more chaos to the maelstrom. While all of this is occurring, some of the most sickeningly bestial vocals pour forth a spirited display of ferocity. With a cursory listen, the music comes across as simply a chaotic myriad of instruments. But upon thorough listening, every note and transition of the controlled chaos feels like it was put in place deliberately and painstakingly. Listening through this album knowing that somebody had to write and create the nearly inhuman technical guitar-work and drums while still forming these elements into a cohesive musical idea can leave just about any listener thunderstruck.

In between these bustling moments, there are quieter, rather sluggish ambient passages. Normally, these would be looked at as quaint breaks from the turbulent assaults of the albums’ heavier material. This supposed tranquility is nothing more than an illusion as, more often than not, there is a sense of malice which pervades the seemingly calm moments. It is in these assumed respites that “Fas…” shows the equally sinister side of itself. Throughout the course of most, if not all, of the nearly silent breaks, there is a sense of building musical intensity. It’s as though the music is letting you know that the heavier material on the album isn’t the only obstacle you need to worry about while listening to “Fas…” in its full, unbridled power. The slowly increasing dread of the creepy, growing intensity is only worsened by the realization that at any moment, “Fas…” will open the dark gates and let the maelstrom flood through to have another shot at your jaded sanity.

“Fas…” truly is one of the most interesting, if not the most interesting, musical experiences I’ve listened through. Never before has an album filled me with such ambivalence as this one. The album is designed to play more like a musical torture device that is only a reward to listen through for those who are willing to endure the scorching and otherworldly power and malice unleashed. The album drags you into a place of discordant bleakness, rips at your psyche with all the fury it can muster, and then lingers in your mind as you return to reality. If you are willing to endure the psychological assault that lies within this album, then do yourself a favor and experience it.

By 2007, Deathspell Omega had already established themselves as trailblazers within the black metal genre. Releases like the monumental, iconoclastic, “Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice” and the intricate, progressive, “Kenose” entrapped listeners in a complex web of sounds and symbolism. However, nothing could prepare audiences for “Fas - Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum”. An extremely dense album, “Fas…” contains virtually no repetition of passages, dramatic changes in tempo and violent mood swings. However, “Fas…” is far from a hodgepodge of unrelated riffs haphazardly thrown together. Like Hieronymus Bosch’s legendary paintings of hell, every piece of “Fas…” comes together to depict a powerful and horrifying realm.

The back cover of the album gives a hint of how to piece this difficult album together. The titles and track numbers of the songs are set up in a diamond. Tracks 2-5 make up the four corners of the diamond. In the center of the diamond is “Obombration” (tracks 1 and 6). While the word “obombration” is absent from both English and Latin dictionaries, it is clearly derived from “obumbrate”—to overshadow, cloud or hang over. The “Obombration” tracks are the foundation for the entire album. They are composed of an “om” chant—which in many traditions signifies the sound of existence. Layered atop the om is dissonant keys and chants. Each “Obombration” track sees these basic noises overthrown by dark, violent themes (a funeral march in the intro and harrowing brass fanfare in the outro)—each ending with the line “perinde ac cadaver”, meaning “…in the manner of a corpse”. Therein lies the theme of the album—the inevitable annihilation of all instances of meaningful existence.

These sounds remain in play throughout the album, becoming explicit between songs and during quieter passages; the inevitable annihilation of life and meaning hangs over the entire album. This is manifest in the lyrics, which give a first person account of a traveler’s journey through a hellish world, in which God is conflated with perdition, death and decay. The lyrics are matched by the album’s artwork. The interior of the booklet depicts a series of images in which healthy humans fall out of a black void, only to slowly decay in the black void’s presence.

Then, of course, there is the music. “Fas…” integrates a wide array of styles to create a horrific and complex world comparable to the hells of Bosch and Dante. The album is predominately composed of fast, chaotic passages that fuse crushing force of technical-death and the vicious sharpness of black metal. The end product sounds like knives slashing across the face of reality. The wild, disorienting blackened-death passages are contrasted with a number of heavy doom metal passages. Like being attacking by a giant beast, these passages exhibit a stunning and direct force. The heavy sections are contrasted by eerie avant garde jazz passages and a few sad, somber moments.

The musicianship is top notch throughout—tight, technical and clean—the best I’ve heard in black metal. However, unlike some technical bands, the visceral spirit is not drained from the music. On the contrary, the technicality only enhances the experience—the listener is confronted with a presence so intense, so overwhelming that it is beyond comprehension. This presence can be called a number of things: death, annihilation, nothingness, but the bottom line is that is simply beyond our comprehension and yet inevitable and real. Perhaps the greatest beauty of the album is that in spite of its dark theme, it is strangely energizing and empowering.

“Fas…” is an endlessly rewarding album. Each listen reveals new aspects and further layers in the mix. Each instrument, each lyric, each image comes together to depict a haunting world that is mysteriously and horrifically a part of our own. The album achieves perfection at all levels; aesthetically, conceptually and viscerally. In short, “Fas…” is high art.

(Originally written for http://listenwell-nocturnal.blogspot.com)

Deathspell Omega is a black metal band often associated with the orthodox black metal movement and the legendary Norma Evangelium Diaboli label; however, with the release of Fas – Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum, labeling Deathspell Omega as merely another black metal band in the vein of Anteaus or Katharsis discredits the band’s astounding abilities and creativity. This release not only defies the standards typical of black metal but also is one of the most interesting musical pieces ever heard by these ears.

Fas has an entirely unique sound unlike anything I’ve ever heard; however, if one were to attempt to draw comparisons, the jarring rhythms of Gorguts’ Obscura, the dissonant arpeggios of The Chasm, the eerie ambient sections from Blut Aus Nord’s The Work Which Transforms God, and the grindcore-esque blasting and aggression of Blasphemy all come to mind. The metal portions of the music are essentially comprised of the most dissonant chord progressions one can imagine, all shrouded under noisy blast beats and the occasional wild guitar solo. Due to both the speed, dissonance, and complexity of the guitar work and the production, any of the four main compositions of Fas would be a nightmare to tab. Indeed, I am sometimes awed that the album is played by humans. As far as the drums are concerned they are mixed so loudly that they could be considered the album’s chief flaw, but I find that the drums only enhance the album’s dark mystique by making the guitar work even more difficult to discern.

The album is not entirely comprised of these chaotic sections, but rather these blasting parts are tastefully contrasted with both disturbing choral sections and eerie segments of multi-tracked guitars, drenched in reverb. For instance, each “song” ends in about a minute of quiet ambience made up of mad choirs and creepily out-of-tune pianos, all building suspense for the utter chaos of the album’s heavier sections. In addition, the compositions contain dissonant, for lack of a better word, “mellow” sections as seen in “Obombration”, the interlude of “Bread of Bitterness”, or the intro of “The Repellent Scars of Abandon & Election” that include multiple tracks of droning guitars and the same disturbing out-of-tune piano.

While Fas deviates from Deathspell Omega’s past works with far more chaotic guitar work, more eerie atmospheric sections, and the addition of guitar solos, a few elements remain consistent with recent works such as “Diabolus Absconditus”. Mikko Aspa uses the same evil growl, and the lyrics are in a similar vein to other works, looking more like the insane musings of a theologian than the lyrics of a black metal band.

What is most intriguing about Fas is not any one of these elements alone but rather the effect that all of these elements have on the patient listener. The metal sections of each composition are so difficult to comprehend and the ambient sections are so dense and eerie that the album can only be fully digested, if ever, after many listens. While some would consider the sheer chaos of Fas to be a flaw, it makes the album of a more interesting listen, as the listener must attempt to find some order out of the chaos. Having listened to the album fifty times or so myself, I still find new nuances amidst the chaos, making Fas – Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum, one of the most rewarding listens of my musical collection.

Oddly enough, black metal has changed a lot since its early years. Bands have come and gone, and many have died with nothing to offer after a few years of existence. That is not the case of Deathspell Omega. And "change" would be a simple way to put what this band has undergone.


This album, overall, demonstrates a great sense of purpose. It is presented as a solid work of art intended to be grasped as a whole and not "track-by-track" (in opposition to the SMRC album). Therefore it's understandable the fact that it has many long moments of ambientation and the transitions between one song and the other (and many times inside a song itself) feels a bit stretched.


That aside, the album's predominant disharmonies and the sometimes chaotic riffing belong to a new line of expression in the scene not often recognized; something I like to call a "modern black metal" as it has many elements considered heresy in previous years in the genre, such as technicality, variating range of intensity, complexity and non-linear approach. This album makes use of technicality to the limit for a black metal band, and the disharmonic, violent and oppressive riffs oftentimes allude to a death metal sound, but never really gets to it; especially backed up by such a strong and obvious idealism that is always present in this work. All of this makes the album sound much more mature in so many ways than old school bands that keep playing the same music the same way after so many years, without ever experimenting or growing.


A subject experimented on previously, satanism in a very deep, poetic kind of way. I think it marries the sound perfectly, and it's safe to say that one cannot exist without the other in this album. Of course, this is not new, but I believe it's better presented and expressed in this album than it has in previous attempts. Regardless of your ideology this work can and must be interpreted as pure art, and at that I think it delivers pretty much everything it sets out to offer.

Fas is the third and final album to Deathspell Omega’s trilogy. The trilogy started with Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice continued through Kénôse, and now finally the epic ending of Fas - Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum. The band has been quite different from their black metal peers since SMRC, and they have continued this style.

The album maintains their dark atmosphere through the intellectual ideas of Satan (personal greatness), but the band is able to do this with using more technical riffs, complex arrangements, and ambient moments than the other albums. This album progresses nicely throughout the album with slower steel picking cumulating into an epic arrangement of disharmony, blasphemy, and complex time signatures. The drumming in the album is noticeable, and arranged in a rather odd way; however, the riffing is also quite odd, so it meshes wonderfully. The album has loads of ups and downs leading to ambient passages, which never overstay their welcome nor go away too quickly.

While going through the up and downs of the album, the band makes the evil and epic atmosphere. The album’s chaotic bits have a hypnotic feel to them, which is similar to what Burzum did with Filosofem. The hypnotic parts take the listener on a trip of pure chaos and into the cosmos to obtain the listeners intellectual greatness.

This is a great new addition to the vast world of black metal, and it will be interesting to see where Deathspell Omega goes from here.

89.5/100

Deathspell Omega was one of my favorite black metal bands. SMRC is a masterpiece, while Inquisitors and Kenose are not far from it. I really wanted to like their last album, Fas - Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum, but it has continued to elude my sensibilities.

There are a lot of emotional reviews about this album. Lots of "this is powerful" and "this is deep". I want to balance those reviews by telling you the truth about the album, what it actually sounds like. I'm not calling into question the other reviewers or their intentions, rather I am issuing this as a warning to people who might be more inclined to hear a realistic review than a piece of emotional propaganda.

Fas is basically a technical progressive death metal album. The reasons are as follows: The musicianship is highly technical. The music is based on unconventional and rapidly changing rhythms. The drums are extremely high in the mix, crisp, and chaotic. There is no trem picking. There is virtually no melody. The vocals are relatively low, and closer to a growling rasp than to a scream. The instrumental/ambient passages account for a lot of the progressive nature, as well.

Simply put, there are almost no traces of black metal in this album. If you are in search of black metal you will not find it here. The only remnants of that genre are the ethos, lyrics, and attitude, but Deathspell Omega left most black metal in the dust long ago in terms of seriousness in that regard and they are playing by their own rules.

I am very upset with this album because there are a lot of parts of it that I like and want more of. Some of the riffs are fantastic and crushing, reaching a new level of brutality above even that of Kenose, but they last for only a very short time. There are so many undesirable elements, however, that it is almost impossible for me to have an enjoyable experience listening to it. The ambient sections are not actually ambient as many people have been saying. No, they are sections of nothing. Silence, literally, that stretches on multiple occasions for not seconds, but minutes. Silence does not add to the atmosphere of the album, especially when used so liberally and at essentially random moments throughout the album.

The drumming, while very accomplished technically, infuriates me. It is too loud - I want to hear the guitars, but I can't over the blaring drums. The jazz/progressive drumming is "cute" at best, at worst it is completely out of place and annoying. Every incredible 1-2 minute segment of actual black metal is subsequently ruined by an even longer segment of progressive improvisation and instrumental noodling. The drumming also manages to be the most important element that keeps the ambient sections (the ambient sections are separate from the "silence" sections) from being enjoyable. Rather than any kind of drum pattern or sound that adds to atmosphere, the drummer uses the same jazzy beats that give a strong impression of something most people are familiar with and do not associate with an evil atmosphere, that is, jazz music. To put it simply, imagine taking a sinister sounding backdrop of effects and eerie noises/voices, throw improvisational drumming from a standard kit at a very high volume on top of that backdrop, and imagine how it might destroy the atmosphere that was originally very dark sounding.

In the end, this album has perhaps 15 minutes of the style of brutal and technical black metal that was found on Kenose - though it has shifted even closer to tech-death so as to be nearly unrecognizable even as black metal at all. What is left of the 45 minute album is a mixture of likely close to 10 minutes of silence, 10 minutes of progressive and ambient "jam sessions", and 10 minutes of experimental prog-rock. No matter how much I enjoy 15 minutes on a 45 minute album, I will never call it a good album.

Considering all this, it is obvious why I rate this album as I do. I am not overly fond of technical death, but even a good tech-death album will outdo Fas. In the end, I think it is the extreme over-the-top experimentation that makes me not like this album. There is no coherent theme. There is no melody, no memorable riffs, no recognizable sounds, not even a particular feeling you get. The album is not scary, it does not leave you trembling or blown away. It is, however, quite exhausting, even boring. You might imagine how 2 minutes of extremely brutal black metal followed by 2 minutes of silence, then 5 minutes of strange improv might be frustrating for someone who wants to hear black metal.

I must stress at this point that aside from metal, ambient and experimental music is my biggest joy. From minimal to noise, breakcore to musique concrete, I enjoy the obscure and strange. This is the position from which I tell you that the experimental aspects of this album are absolutely not enjoyable.

The great moments are extremely fleeting. The bad moments linger unnecessarily. Overall, this album is not a rewarding listening experience in any way, shape, or form. All that may be possibly gotten from it is a few snippets of some extremely violent black metal. DsO makes you pay for that black metal with twofold the amount in wankery.

I will try to reconcile this journal with the mention of a particular song on Fas. A Chore For the Lost is actually quite an incredible song. Most of this is due to the fact that it contains, by far, the largest percentage of real metal on it. It is much less convoluted and pointless than the rest of the album, hence a true theme and meaning may be drawn from the song. It stands as the only thing on the album actually worth listening to.

Otherwise, I recommend this album to fans of technical death similar to Gorguts' Obscura album, fans of technical drumming, and fans of progressive and incoherent musical experimentation.

Second of a trilogy of albums inquiring into the nature of evil, religious faith and humans' relationship to both, this DSO recording is a sophisticated and intellectual musical endeavour that has to be heard and appreciated as a whole. The music is complex and irregular: the same song can go from slow and wavering to sudden furious explosions of blastbeats and riffing, then down into a sullen smouldering rhythmic phase that erupts into another hateful blastbeat storm. Each track on the album is also preceded by very quiet and suspenseful passages of ambient or industrial-ambient tonal music. So you don't expect to hear separate songs distinguished by particular patterns of rhythm and riffing (although the really important tracks like the last two tracks have more distinctive motifs) but rather linked chapters of a musical opus whose theme demands that it be as challenging, convoluted, frustrating and transcendent as itself. What could be more challenging and complicated than to confront evil and one's own faith and discover that these may merely be dark twins of one another? May not eternal salvation and reception into Heaven be a fate WORSE than turning away from God and being rejected by Him? If we never stray from God, does He value us more than those who rebel against Him and whom He casts into darkness and torment forever?

Oh all right, enough of the gobbledygook: you're here for the music. The foregoing spasm was necessary because with the aim that DSO have set for themselves, the question is whether the music as it is, is worthy of that lofty concept. If we go track by track, we find the drama unfolds naturally with a logic all its own not to be questioned by us: the opus awakens from a deep subterranean cave slumber, falls on us suddenly and draws us into its labyrinth. Opener "Obombration" is intense but controlled with space enough within to emphasise the keen sharp edge of the music and the harsh light that falls on it, and the tensions lurking within the still-shadowy depths: these burst forth in "The Shrine of Mad Laughter", one of the more convoluted tracks on the album, with rushing chaos, tortured vocals, jerky stop / start rhythms and clear vistas of far-reaching light, dark and space all crammed up against one another. "Bread of Bitterness" continues the rollercoaster punishment with a plunge into another bout of blastbeat torment against a background of ghostly echoes; moments of stillness suggesting internal despair and of a solo guitar tracing an inner struggle follow, to be met by more blastbeat thunder and confusion.

"The Repellent Scars of Abandon and Election" starts off melodic and serpentine and suggests interrogation at work. One of the great things about this album is how disciplined it all is, no matter how savage the music gets (and it gets savage indeed). There is a higher purpose at work here which does not allow the music to be too emotional, overwhelming and in-your-face booming, that it all but bludgeons listeners senseless and leaves them unable to continue. No point in torturing people so much that they cease to feel pain, that ain't what torture is about: it's all about prolonging the pain and making you feel it! Blasts of intense drumming thunder punctuate sections of molten flowing synthesiser and guitar melodies and threaten to smother the increasingly anguished vocals.

"A Chore for the Lost" pushes the music to its utmost: the vocals become multi-tracked with mad choirs in the background joining in the frenzy, episodes of blastbeat anger are more strained and furious to the point of being permanently frozen in perpetual juddering noise and keyboards swoop up and down in maddened flight. There are dramatic and intense melodic passages and definite riffs suggestive of prog rock and psychedelic music, comparable to some of the Italian BM band (V.E.G.A.)'s music at its most delirious, featured in this track.

We find we come full circle to "Obombration" where final judgement is passed on the spiritual investigation in a Baroque cacophony of psychotic and tortured voices and bombastic orchestral music and at this point the real metaphysical torture probably begins. (Oh yeah, we have to wait for the third album ... uh no, I didn't really have THAT in mind. We all knew in advance DSO have a third album planned, didn't we?)

In less than 50 minutes the music has packed in so much drama, suspense, tension and energy yet has managed to bring the listener all the way through the emotional and mental highs and lows to the end which turns out to be Alpha / Omega. Verdict? - yes the music has fulfilled its remit and is worthy of the question put to it.

The production is as significant as the music itself and plays a major role in sculpting it and giving it added drama and suspense as well as the necessary depth so that it does not become one-dimensional (this was a problem with the first album "Si Monumentum Reqvires, Circumspice" in the series). There is plenty of space and the DSO guys have toned down the excessive force that dominated "Si Monumentum ..." by mixing up the aggressive music with more melodic and slower passages of music, the use of ambient effects and singing that sounds more realistic than the Gregorian chanting of "Si Monumentum ...".

I have to say though that in going for intricacy, control and drama, DSO have had to forgo some rawness and spontaneity: the music can come across as overly intellectual and calculated. Some listeners can probably see from a mile off what the nature of the spiritual quest is going to be just by looking at the track titles. That all-worked-out-before-the-music-begins aspect might be annoying to some people for whom the pleasure of listening to music is as much in discovering new and relevant things in it that even the original composers hadn't thought of, as in following the train of thought. I would also say the album is a bit artificial but mainly in the sense that this is a complex work of art which can make great demands on listeners' knowledge of religion and theological inquiry.

If you're feeling really cerebral and don't mind losing a few brain cells - because you're going to lose them anyway through the normal metabolic processes so why not give them a good send-off - you could always try listening to this together with the USBM band L'Acephale's ferocious "Mort und Totsclag".

Although this is primarily a review of Deathspell Omega's newest release, it can also serve as a brief intro for those unfamiliar with the band. The descriptions of the preceding works can also serve as reference points leading to a better understanding of Fas - Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum.

Deathspell Omega's first full-length, Infernal Battles, was released in 2000, and consists of primal, minimally-produced, Darkthrone worshiping, black metal. Splits with Finnish warlords Clandestine Blaze, the bewildering one-man German black metal project Moonblood, and the French Les Légions Noires stalwarts Mutiilation followed. The equally raw and bleak Inquisitors of Satan, released in 2002, ended Deathspell Omega's first phase.

After what had gone before, nobody expected what the band would wreak with its 2004 release, Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice, the first of a trilogy concerning divine will, Man's inherent perdition, and the inevitability of his eternal judgment. That release displayed a band that had leapt so far ahead of its previous incarnation as to be almost unrecognizable. Lengthy song constructions filled with dense, macabre melodic musings tangled with joy-crushing powerhouse black metal while lyrically invoking the mysteries of God, Satan, and Man's tragic and unwitting role in the eternal battle between righteousness and evil.

This concept was alluded to on three releases that followed: From the Entrails to the Dirt (2005) a three-record split with French hordes Antaeus, Mutiilation, and Malicious Secrets, further consolidated Deathspell Omega's reputation as a black metal band that is challenging the genre's status quo. In 2005 the band released the EP Kénôse, a collection of songs so disturbing in their dark beauty that larger numbers in the metal community finally began to take serious notice.

Also in 2005, Northern Heritage released Crushing the Holy Trinity, a very limited three-record set (1,000 copies) containing the efforts of six bands, each of which got half a side. Side one, entitled "Father" featured a nearly 23-minute opus titled "Diabolus Absconditus." With this composition, Deathspell Omega left every other black metal band in the stylistic dirt and freed itself from the constraints of a genre that had grown largely moribund. "Diabolus Absconditus" was a revelation! Deranged riffing, a five-minute acoustic interlude that sounded like hellish jazz, impossible time changes and bizarre, angular chording revealed that this Franco-Finnish ensemble was single-handedly inventing an elite of black metal trail-blazers, creating music that nobody had thought to formulate before.

Now comes Deathspell Omega's latest opus, Fas - Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum (loosely translated from the Latin, it means "By divine law, go ye cursed into eternal fire"). Simply put, it is phenomenal; quite possibly the greatest metal release I've encountered in a decade. It's beyond good. It's revolutionary. Lyrically, the band has transcended juvenile Satanic flirtation and embarked upon a fervent and erudite exploration of universal theology. It will take multiple listenings (and perhaps a few reference excursions to the Bible and Dante's Inferno) to fully comprehend the message Deathspell Omega is attempting to impart. In a nutshell, for those impatient souls, the message is this: Hopelessness.

Like the last four offerings from Deathspell Omega, this release begins quietly, with a song titled "Obombration," featuring an ethereal and nebulous choir chanting over soft neoclassical musings. It's not long, however, until chaos erupts with DsO's trademark uber-heavy arpeggios lumbering about like a Satanic Pink Floyd. Mid-tempo drums anchored by a subdued double-bass rumble mark time while a sample of something that sounds like a foghorn permeates the gloomy atmosphere. This fades out after a few minutes, replaced by more mournful chanting, which eventually succumbs to silence.

The second track, "The Shrine of Mad Laughter," erupts suddenly with a furious blast-beat attack, harkening back to DsO's past releases, before segueing into a convoluted maze of bent, angular riffing and drumming that's nearly impossible to comprehend, much less tap one's foot to. DsO's drummer, whoever he or she is, is a monster and gets better with each release. The percussion is metal, jazz, psychedelia, anti-music, and sheer power, all rolled into one pummeling amalgam of rhythmic insanity. The song ends with more quietude, a formula repeated throughout the album. This is a very jarring set of tunes. One is constantly jerked from the ambient interludes to the rampant black metal salvos; it is unnerving and emotionally draining.

Track three, "The Bread of Bitterness," contains psychotic layers of guitar, dozens of them, augmented with something that sounds like a calliope, creating what, at times, sounds like circus music from Hell. There is an innovative mix on this cut - a male choir follows Aspa's delirious vocals, hovering just beneath the surface, a very rewarding and slightly frightening listening experience with headphones.

The fourth track, "The Repellent Scars of Abandon and Election," features an insane call and response wherein a very evil sounding voice whispers each line, after which Aspa screams it in a demented sermonizing vocal style. After a minute, it switches and the whispers echo Aspa's lines. Then it all starts to overlap until voices are bombarding the listener from all directions in an anarchy of screams, whispers, howls, and moans. Very intense and harrowing! About two-thirds of the way through the song this madness suddenly abates and a slightly de-tuned piano offers a discordant melody line for a few bars before the madness begins anew.

Orchestral samples and layered choirs permeate the next song, "A Chore for the Lost." More screaming, more musical bellicosity, more superb ensemble playing, more incredible black metal.

Finally, it ends with a short reprise of the first song.

In its execution, Fas - Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum is jubilant and celebratory. It's crushing and evil. It's suffocating and dense. There are so many musical ideas thrown about that it's difficult to capture them all in one, or even several, listening sessions. Make no mistake – this is definitely black metal. The music contains the requisite tremolo riffing, hyper-kinetic blast-beast drumming, and scorched earth vocals that linger between a death metal growl and a traditional black metal screech. But there is so much more. The drummer flirts with jazz, psychedelia, thrash, doom, and a half dozen other styles, and masters them all. Mikko Aspa has one of the most distinct voices in metal. It's bombastic, scary, demonic, enunciated, and is instantly recognizable after just one listen. Hasjarl's guitar playing is also first rate. He peppers the tunes with shimmering, serpentine leads and light-speed riffing. His style is, at times, a black metal version of Joy Division - hovering beneath the melody, setting up the kill, waiting for the chance to attack. His inventiveness and technique are astonishing.

I must reiterate that Fas - Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum is the finest, most impressive black metal release I've ever heard, and the best metal album in any genre I've acquired in the past decade. Deathspell Omega is quietly revolutionizing the Metal universe and I anticipate the third installment of the trilogy like I've anticipated nothing else in this style of music. I suggest you order this album immediately and see what metal can be. Deathspell Omega is the savior of black metal.

Since the release of "Infernal Battles", I have followed DsO . In 2004, "Si Monumentum" absolutly blew me away with its incredible suffocating atmosphere, and unique lyrical concept. While I enjoyed the appendix to the album (Kenose), it didn't quite capture the brilliance of "Si Monumemtum..". The two 20+ minute tracks from the Crushing the Holy Trinity and From the Entrails to the Dirt split albums completely re-istablished DsO's role in the forefront of black metal. Needless to say, I have been awaiting the new full length with an anticipation seldom felt after years of being dissapointed by my favorite bands.

"Fas.." is quite simply, a mind fuck. Everything on this release has been stepped up a notch, from the production, to the technical, dissodent riffs, to the drumming. First off, the production is very crisp and powerfull, but what makes the difference is the fact that Deathspell Omega are able to present their vision somewhat *gasp* "polished", without losing a shred of their all so important atmosphere. Since 2004, DsO has had very technical and distinctive guitars, on "Fas", that is an understatement. Never have I heard such mindblowing technical brilliance with out sounding forced, or worse yet, masturbatory. Each and every note, scale, harmonic, and anti-rythem have a clear and distinct purpose : to destroy your paradigm of what black metal can be. At times it sounds like there are 5-6 riffs going on at the same time, each going in different directions, only to snap back together in perfect coherance to force you to realize this is more than mere music. They have taking their technicality to the absolute farthest point that I believe is possible to keep the atmosphere in place.

The drumming is louder and more intense then any DsO album. The only point of reference I can think of for the violence of the drums is Antaeus' "Blood Libels", but "Fas" is much more chaotic. I have the vinyl and cd version, and I must recomend the vinyl to truely capture the ritualistic feel of the music. So, does it surpass "Si Monumentum".... in my opinion, no. But I don't believe anything ever will. This is not to fault "Fas"... for with this album, DsO have crafted a work of utter Satanic brilliance that is head and shoulders above just about everything out there in every respect. Besides the formidable musical chops, the lyrics are once again of the highest order. Like the music itself, it will take time and patience for them to reveal their true power and meaning. This is not music for hanging out with friends and drinking, this is devestating ritual worship which can ONLY be fully apreciated when your absolute attention is given to it. Just as we as fans expect so much from Deathspell Omega, they in turn expect much from us.

The short version of this review would be: This is Deathspell Omega's best and most ambitious record yet. It's not to be missed. With that out of the way, I wanted to state a few further thoughts I had on this record and this band in general.

DsO records are, in my opinion, among the best produced in all of Black Metal. So many bands add copious amounts of reverb in order to convey the sense of being in a subterranean cavern or a bleak and desolate landscape. It's a time-honored technique and often very effective. The problem is that many pedals and soundboard simulators tend to sound exactly like what they are: imitations. Deathspell Omega manages to create, either by actual room acoustics, a higher recording budget, or sophisticated studio skill, an incredible sense of space on their recordings. Try playing this album on a decent stereo at full volume and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about. Rather than feel like you're listening to a "record" of a Satanic ritual, you'll feel like you're in the middle of an actual Black Mass... and YOU are the sacrifice!

About the words, Deathspell Omega's lyrics are the best. Period. The depth of the philosophy behind them deserves to be studied at the University level. They pretty much make the lyrics of other band's songs seem like vague and sophomoric rants. Mixing ominous latin maledictions with bleak, suicidal poetry and blasphemous curses against an illegitimate god in heaven, the songs sound more like daemonic prayers than the standard Satanic war-cries found on so many other records. And all delivered in one of the most unique voices in this type of music. But there is something to be said for a simple shout-along song while you're pounding beers with some friends. I can't really see myself doing that to this record. It's just too intense.

Now onto the music. I am, and always will be, a sucker for a good guitar riff. Heavy, simple, and repetitive equals good metal in my book. I love listening to a killer, fuzzed-out lick, then picking up my guitar and entering a trance-like state as I recreate it for hours. I can't do that with DsO. They're too good. The music is too complex to be duplicated convincingly. But before my lame description gives the idea that this is some kind of bullshit math-rock workout, know this. This record hits all the points of the pentagram for qualifying as authentic Black Metal. But it's more than that as well. It's a swift boot to the the teeth of all the old-fart classicists who endlessly mewl on and on how Black Metal musicians can't play. Can't compete with so-called "real" musicians. Total vindication! This band murders almost any other I can think of for sheer technical ability and instrumental chops. Yes, they're unique, yes, they're experimental. But forget all that. The real achievement here is that despite the complicated rhythms, multitude of dynamic shifts, weird atonal scales, abrupt variances in speed, and sudden drop-outs to sparse piano melodies, the result remains undeniably heavy, uncompromisingly evil, and totally pure Black Metal.

Ok, I've been listening to Deathspell Omega for a while now, starting with "Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice", then with the "Kenose" EP, which I thought was brilliant, and finally their latest opus, "Fas - Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum". Considering the aforementioned releases and the hype surrounding this album, I was expecting nothing less than a groundbreaking album. I was not disappointed. This french horde knows how to play Black Metal.

The first thing that struck me about this album would be the album art, which depicts a human falling through the darkness. You automatically notice that his organs are showing, and his eyes are covered by the garment he wears. This is artwork, that, for once, actually fits the album name: translated, it means roughly "go, ye sinners, into the eternal fire/shadow".
Onto the music itself... The album starts off with a track entitled Obombration, which has a minute and a half sample of what sounds you'd expect to come from a crypt, before a crushingly evil guitar riff comes in, a rythmic, almost tribal beat from the drums is heard, and Mikko Aspa's unforgettable rasp presides over the whole piece. The man has a bestial voice that is made all the more evil by the reverb effect used on it. Occasionally it sounds like he is yelling instead of growling, which makes the overall picture even more forbidding . The album then blasts its way unexpectedly through the listener's ears, sometimes incredibly fast, with militaristic, precise drumming and tight riffing, sometimes slow, atmosphere-laden passages reminiscent of the "Kenose EP", and other times no instruments are playing but several frightening samples, including the one of the crypt that reared its head in the first track. The album finishes off with a second track entitled Obombration, where it seems as if there is a sample of an entire orchestra playing, along with pain-filled cries. Perhaps the significance of having two songs with the same name is that the album is meant to be played in a cycle.

This album is definitively a masterpiece, and most likely the best black metal album 2007 has to offer. If you liked "Si Monumentum' and "Kenose", buy this album, as it mixes the best elements of both.

If you liked "Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice", You're going to love this. Its so far the same sort of religious sounding primal, hateful sounding Black Metal that DsO are loved for. Rythmic, amazingly fast, brutal, artillery-like drumming, razor-sharp guitars that sound evil and melodic both at once, non-existant bass (as far as I can tell) and DsO's trademark medium-pitch scream/growl.

I've heard this referred to as "Si Monumentum" meets Blut Aus Nord's "The Work Which Transforms God", to be honest, I can see where the people referring to it as such are coming from, however, it's not a bad thing. I really like this album so far.

The standout track (so far) is track 4, The Repellent Scars Of Abandon, is amazing. brutal drumming, melody by the bucketful, but still an opressive, raw, hateful atmosphere, broken somewhere between 7 and 8 minutes in by a beautiful melodic piano (at least I think it's a piano) part, followed by an almost Meshuggah-sounding melodic BM attack, before the pace slows down again at about 9 minutes, into a mid-to-fast paced crazy as hell section with tremolo pickings, melodies, counter-melodies and insane drumming that climaxes at about 11 minutes when the song suddenly cuts into an eerie piano melody. This is good stuff.

Highly worth the purchase, in my view. For fans of DsO's work, Blut Aus Nord's stuff, and any sort of straight up BM.

Standout Tracks: The Shrine Of Mad Laughter, The Repellent Scars Of Abandon