Chapter III, the Madness from the Sea

It should be easy to notice, that Arkham (not to be confused with their countrymates Arkh'aam) perform music inspired by the writings of Howard Phillip Lovecraft and in this French band's case the music is blackish dark metal. 'Chapter III - The Madness from the Sea' EP is the first CD release after tape album and demos.

As the title of the release suggests, this is based on sea monsters in Lovecraft mythos. All the lyrics, except 'Quelque Chose...' (though in French in this song), are actual Lovecraft texts. 'Nemesis I' has the band's own lyrics in French, so I can't comment on their quality. I do not think I need to comment on quality of Lovecraft's writings?! So, two songs are in English, two in French. Words are expressed with hoarse black metal wheeze, which is moderately okay, but a bit too unvaried even though some screams and such is heard.

The music is definitely ugly and primitive in the vein of black metal, but riffs feel too familiar (Immortal, check, Celtic Frost, check). At times slow, sometimes dragginly so, and at times fast without much impact. What this lacks is both evil and eerie atmospheres, which the lyrical content requires. This is mainly caused by the lead guitar, which totally lacks of any kind of mood, because it's louder in the mix than other elements, and it causes immediate irritation. There's some echo in the vocals, and some effects such as deep water sounds and chaotic screams are used. 'Quelque...' features a 3-minute long ambient sound part, but it is quite meaninglessly put in the middle of a black metal song. The drumming is somewhat sloppy and therefore this ain't tightly performed. The bassist plays some slightly weirder things, but this alone does not help much. The sound on this release is quite dry, and this is one thing that prevents the atmosphere from building up. 'The Call of Cthulhu' is the best song of the bunch, being most varying and at least with some atmosphere.

Arkham haven't reached any kind of credible Lovecraftian mood on this release, I'm afraid. More careful mixing and by incorporating some Lovecraft geist would help the band for starters.

Originally writen for Archaic Metallurgy in 2005.

It isn't easy to pay homage to H.P.Lovecraft musically. In fact, it may be insulting to The Master because he was not fond of music due to an odd, perhaps peculiarly other-worldly, tone deafness. Many bands have tried, admirably at times, insultingly at others (hmmm, if writing a song about a classical story, wouldn't it be NICE to spell names like, for example, CTHULHU correctly, hmmmm?...or would that have taken too much effort for metallifags on "Ride the Lightning"?.....). Arkham succeeds as admirably as can be expected with such cosmically challenging material to work with.

This is black metal. There are, indeed, some atmos-fear-ics on the ep, but the main focus is black metal. There is not an attempt to create extra-bizarre structures here, as a less adept HPL-worshipping band may try; these are actually good, memorable songs. Even if you are not a devotee of Lovecraft, there is a lot of high-quality black metal to enjoy on this 26 minute slab. There is NOT a preponderance of orchestration or keyboards or "spooky"/ambient sounds (though there are some); this is mostly just guitar/bass/drums/vocals.

The production on this is quite bleak sounding, in a good way. This has an almost demo-like quality to it, as if whoever produced it was unfamiliar with recording techniques; either that, or it is a very unique sound if intentional. The guitars are quite trebly, and there is a murky low-end lurking in the background. The drums are just right, neither too prominent nor too muffled. The vocals are slightly atypical for black metal, but are in the shrill, ghastly gasp that suits more horror-oriented music. There is a bit of variety from the vocalist, not too much but just enough to remain interesting. His chosen name is also rather clever for the Lovecraft afficianado..."Comte Derleth".

In keeping with the startling terror that The Master, HPL, put to page, Arkham pulls off a few very surprising little tricks within the context of some of the songs; I won't reveal them here in order to not ruin the shock value that I'm sure they intended, but I certainly appreciated them!

This ep creates a very pleasing, gruesomely creepy mood. As a huge fan of HPL, I can heartily recommend it and look forward to a full-length in the future. But keep in mind, this is not an album that is just for us HPL fanatics...there is also some just plain exciting black metal to be found on "Chapter III: The Madness From the Sea"(which refers to the story "The Call of Cthulhu", but the way in case you were wondering...at first I thought it meant this was Arkham's 3rd album!)