Curse of Underground

I’ve never heard of Endless Dismal Moan before, and the name itself is cause for fear; I’ve grown ever-so-tired of all these depressive black metal bands peddling their needless shit to adolescent crybabies. It seems it’s always the same deal; two riffs repeated throughout an entire album, annoying howls and dodgy drum programming. But, Curse of underground is actually far from what I expected, and in many ways surprising since I do appreciate the noise delivered.

The opening curse is just six minutes of ambience; monotonous, ominous ambience. Nothing I find all that thrilling since I’ve never been a fan of ambient influenced black metal, but I suppose it’s effective in its repetitive approach. Where one would’ve expected the opening track to be some form of intro and track two to go at it for real, it’s once again ambience, but this time with little to add. It’s not until Curse3 that we get served a real song (well, real in the sense that it’s not just ambience). Industry-oozing black metal is on the table. The super-sped drum machine and the weird high-pitched squeals in combination with the raw and lo-fi production really make for an unusual approach to the genre. There really aren’t any riffs to talk about, and it’s mostly just a droned-out, melancholic fingering on the guitar, letting the keys take to the forefront. Somehow the synthesized music doesn’t get out of hand, and it never drowns anything out, never overwhelms you with annoying melodies; it’s just repetitive, monotonous keys. Vocally it luckily never comes close to the typical Varg Vikernes inspired howling, but remains some sort of background noise, screeching like crazy. It all comes together in a marvelously industrialized black metal recipe; one I can easily state I’ve never heard the likes of before.

I’m not sure how to make references, nor how to really describe Endless Dismal Moan’s sound. It’s weird and strangely effective, uneasy, unnerving and super freaky. The insane speed of the programmed drums and the lack of predominate riffing is simply put just weird. And after three songs of this noisy black we once again get served some ambience. Unfortunately Curse6 sounds pretty damn close to a shortened repetition of Curse1, which leaves me confounded.

This was a one-man band, and the sole member decided to end his life in 2008, meaning this album was released posthumously. I have to say kudos for living up to the bleak atmosphere of his music, and Chaos9’s suicide actually gives credit to his work since Endless Dismal Moan clearly wasn’t just another cry for attention, but an actual outlet of emotions. To add another personal touch to the release, the cover consists of a very fitting minimalistic painting of his. Curse of underground is just strangely effective, and a bit addictive as well.

Originally written for My Last Chapter