Cosmos

Although this one harks back into the 90's, the band decided to reissue and rerecord it measly five years later. Doubt the Colombian BM scene's standards happened to exponentially rise on the course of that time period, yet the band deemed it necessary to upgrade their past work, instead of, say, working on new material. Whatever it is, "Cosmos" sounds sort of passable for its time and place but not particularly good or interesting and not without all too visible blemishes. It certainly is light years away from being the self-claimed "music for the cultural elite", unless the band members are flaunting their intellect and radical worldview before some poor peasant coco leaf pickers in the nearby jungle villages. Black metal appears to be the nominal term in this case. Beneath the sheets sits the band member's gothic fixation that is crowned by apparent sexual frustration and anxiety, exemplified by both somewhat melodramatic musical solutions, fairly infantile lyrical output (mostly in Spanish but a couple of English language pieces paint a clear enough picture), as well as a stunning booklet photo capturing one of the band members, in a make-believe moment, about to perform cunnilingus (while still looking as evil as possible) on an ecstatic-looking young lady dressed as a nun. Take that CRADLE OF FILTH!

The main duo of Beast and Serpent threw in three whole intros/interludes into the fold, two of which unexpectedly turned out to be of dark ambient variety (third one being of the more typical pseudo-symphonic, neo-classical type), but I am still undecided whether they really fit here at all. No matter, because the remaining six track mainframe started off on a rather thin ice. "Luto Perpetuo" jetted through my ears in an utterly bland manner, forever stuck in a loop of arrested development. This track is really an odd man out on the album. A pair of redundant black metal tremolo sequences come out of nowhere only to disappear into the same tunnel without accomplishing much at all. This also happens to be the only song that, according to the liner notes, features programmed drums. I will restrain from speculating upon possible reasons as to why this track not only ended up on the album but also became its real opener after an intro. I will state that the boys do manage to display more purpose when they leave straightforward black metal alone and focus on slower dark metal ruminations for the rest of the record. The established sound, while lacking in real heaviness and good production values, is clear and still nails down the warm darkness of Southern variety, which correlates in different parts of the world, be it Southern Europe or South America.

The formal range of similarities prostrates somewhere between the sluggish stomp of early MURDER RAPE, just to give some sort of Latin American analogy, and occult sensibilities of the erstwhile Italian and Greek scenes of old, on the European end. OCCULTUS, however, are neither as numbingly monochromatic and slow as the former, and do not mind upping the speed a little once in a blue moon. Plus, they chose to partially compromise the latter by applying visible fingerprints of the old favorites MY DYING BRIDE, what with hefty doses of violin injections (not to mention some fem vocals - we're talking 90's here) thoroughly permeating (in that typical manner of the time) tracks such as "Un Grito Un Llanto" or "Cosmos...Lagrimas Negras", and with that title track setting up another three minute intro/prologue before getting down to the actual business. "Gloria al Ocultismo" and "The Forest...Dream Lover" largely avoid the mushy stuff and manage to bring themselves a bit closer to the classic Greek sound, though hardly with any particularly innovative results. Whatever balance there is, I suppose it is achieved on the course of a whole album, not through properly working out the individual songs. But that, again, only renders the record little more than pedestrian, because the duo, with or without help of their session musicians, never manage to conceive any really gripping or even properly atmospheric material, though weak sound and simplistic arrangements are partially to blame here. Another technical and rather silly fly in the ointment comes in the from of the track "Spawn of Lilith", which is demolished by a completely inadequate snare drum sound - inexcusably thin and clicky - compared to what is heard on neighboring tracks. It sticks out like a sore thumb, and resounding enough to pretty much ruin whatever goes on around it. I won't again speculate on the circumstances that forced the band to leave this track the way it turned out, but that should explain why they were so eager to rerecord the whole thing.

I looked up the newer version of "Spawn of Lilith" on youtube and, sure enough, great production with mature and more intricate arrangements did wonders for the song, eliciting similarities to ROTTING CHRIST no less, which proves that proper sound can indeed elevate average material a great deal sometimes. That alone, of course, immediately prompts me to recommend "Cosmos 2002" over its older twin brother.