Caduceus Chalice

What – this isn’t a lost Xasthur album? I have to recheck that I’m actually listening to an Australian band named Moon whose debut album Caduceus Chalice was released through Wolfsvuur – known for its ’quantity over quality’ principle if you ask me – in early 2010 and now getting a CD re-release treatment by Moribund Records. Everything is so similar, if not identical, to Xasthur that I’m confused: the same ghostly, dissonant atmosphere, effect-filled vocals and a drum machine are all present.

I do find myself enjoying Caduceus Chalice’s ominous atmosphere. As described by the band itself, it is a journey through the underworld, and the album succeeds in it with its multiple layers of instrumentation. Compositionally, however, Moon doesn’t provide anything absolutely interesting, at least anything that Xasthur hasn’t done before. Also, the 20-minute ”Chalice” – from which I find much Elysian Blaze influences, by the way – drags on a bit too long, giving too much emphasis on the power of repetition. The song does get better towards the end when e.g. choirs appear, but is still prolonged overall.

Certain moments on ”Monastery” are very good and otherwise the whole Caduceus Chalice is decent, but in the end it doesn’t provide anything that would capture my interest entirely, most likely because of the similarity to the aforementioned band: these dissonant melodies, effected vocals and drums machines are all heard before. Those who are in love with Xasthur’s eerie, dissonant music (and haven’t had enough of that band’s massive discography) might find Caduceus Chalice a worthy investment.

2.5 / 5
[ http://www.vehementconjuration.com/ ]

You are walking through a dark and mysterious forest. It’s the middle of winter, so there is snow on the ground and a chill to the air. The forest sprawls across the base of a mountain and extends far up the side of it. The soundtrack to your walk? Moon’s “Caduceus Chalice”, a black metal demo that harkens back to the glory days of the genre.

The demo kicks off with the atmospheric “In Shadow” before kicking into “Forest Samhain”, a song that’ll make the listener feel like they’ve stepped back in time to 1992. Moody keyboards, wall of fuzz guitars, and vocals that sound like cries of agony from inside a deep, dank cave set the tone for the rest of the demo. Next is the ten minute long “Beneath”, which starts with some nice pummeling (as pummeling as the horrible production allows) drums and buzz saw guitars before the keyboard and vocals come in. The song slows down for about thirty seconds before that nice double bass starts up again. At about the halfway point, the guitars change to a wall of white noise for about a minute before we’re back to the main riff. It’s a truly epic song and the highlight of the demo. “Monastery” recalls Burzum at their most classic for the first half, but suddenly changes gears and becomes a moody gothic piece, complete with choir vocals. From there we go into “Caduceus” which is a slow burner with vocals that sound like they’re coming from a soul burning in the depths of Hell. Finally we hit the near twenty minute long closer, “Chalice”. It starts with a clean guitar riff before turning into funeral dirge, with beautiful keyboards and more agonized vocals. It almost brings to mind My Dying Bride, with the keyboards and slow, doomy riff. A choir kicks in near the fourteen minute mark, adding a shit-ton of atmosphere to a song that’s already oozing with it. Soon, everything except the keyboards and choir are stripped away and the song builds back up to that fuzzy doom riff while maintaining the ethereal atmosphere of the keys and choir. A truly epic and beautiful closing to an epic and beautiful demo.

I think I’m the only person in my little group of metal thugs who’s remembered that, at one point, the Outback meant something in the realm of extreme metal. Ugly, ugly, UGLY music it was, but it was effective in creating the hellish atmosphere those black/death metal bands needed. This was back MANY a year, though, and I can’t say I’d found anything from Australia worth writing home about in recent times. Still, I can look back fondly, by my very lonesome, when the likes of Bestial Warlust, black metal-era Carpe Tenebrum and Nazxul reigned supreme upon a proverbially brimstoney Ayer’s Rock.

However, as I’d stated before, the pool of Aussie black/death metal has been pretty thinned and stagnant over the years, so once I grabbed the latest from this here Moon band, I’d hoped that some of that old spirit would still live on…

From the get-go, it seems as though what Moon projects is what we in the old-time industry refer to as “Black Fucking Metal”; tinny, minor-chord-clad guitar riffs, overtly reverbed ghastly screams, cardboard-like drums, and bass buried so deeply you’d wonder why they even bothered having one on the album. This is a pretty ugly record, there’s no doubt about it, though the product teems with a sort of musical immaturity that may have been king in the black metal days of yore, but these days comes off as repetitive and a bit lazy. Combined with the lower-than-the-lowest-fi production, it’s makes it pretty difficult for this listener to stay focused on the blinding blur of sound. We’re talkin’ Back Funeral-style ambient static, though not quite as annoying. Then again, that may have been the intention of the Mooners, to blend thin and razory guitars, doomy percussion, gothic-tinged synthetics and vocals so distorted it all comes off as repeatedly rants and yowls together to make all forms of listener feel uncomfortable and seat-squirming. If that’s the case, then bravo, ‘cause this really made me feel more than a touch dowdy and dead-flower-like.

Still, despite the rather amateurish production and approach, the music itself can be a little above average for a group of its caliber, incorporating the aforementioned elements that betray a bit of its deathcrushing roots to prevent it from completely festering over. When focusing on those, a sort of monstrous coldness is present, though it’s hard to enjoy properly when the recording means squish it all S’Mores-like into that single plastic disc. Plus, having a 7-to-10 minute song feature only three or four riffs kinda grates on the nerves and attention span more than it should. I’m not saying this is a total throwback; there’s more going on than it would appear to have on the outside. It’ll just take some serious work to temper out the bad in order for the good to come a’climbin’ up from the pit of despair it spawned from. But that’s not up to me, though…

In the end I’m not too sure what to make of Moon’s latest. Rather than chalk it up to suffering from “Standard Moribund Records Band Syndrome”, that touch of potential could be worth more its weight in spiked and axes if utilized correctly. Otherwise, it could be best left wallowing in the steaming swamp of pure, inky blackness. There’s a time and a place for it, and I’m not sure when that time will come to me next time around.

Outside of Striborg, there's not a wealth of atmospheric black metal from Australia that I've discovered or enjoyed. Until Moon, that is. Forming some years ago, this has long been the project of a single individual, one 'Miasmyr' as he channels the tropes of spacious and incredibly grim, primitive black metal into a lush otherworld where the very process used to record it compensates for any true lack of innovation. Caduceus Chalice is the first full-length, following up on a series of demos and EPs, but what one will immediately notice here is the very sound of the thing, a dire and malevolent apocrypha of carnal repression that becomes a thing of beauty despite itself.

Basically, you've got these distant, echoing vocals being carried across either subterranean or deep, dark woodland spaces while desolate razor guitars hiss at the very edge of perception. The drums remain steady, programmed and driving, while keyboards play through the voracious eloquence like spectral choirs. A clear influence would be Burzum's Filosofem, but I might also compare this to some of what Xasthur, Leviathan or Striborg have achieved, only with a more straightforward purchase upon the listener's lonely soul. Tracks like "Forest Samhain" and "Beneath" do devolve into a measure of repetition, but Miasmyr is wise to never let such bleak passages procrastinate forever, so like the greatest of black metal, one does feel as if he or she has partaken on a journey, ever downward into the seas of madness that slosh at the base of the soul like stomach acid. The latter half of the album, consisting of "Caduceus" and the 20 minute "Chalice" itself could be counted as something more experimental, more deeply rooted in sheer atmosphere and ambiance, but they never concede the stark oppression of the pure metal tunes.

Call it depressive, call it suicidal, or call it opaque, Caduceus Chalice is a thing of atmosphere and wonder in accordance with the finer fringes of this tradition, easy to become absorbed in if one ceases to hold onto the guiding lights of hope and acceptance. Clearly something you want to be checking out if you're into any of the artists I've already listed, or perhaps Hypothermia, or even Drowning the Light. 50 minutes of warmth that you will never have back, leeched from your spirit with each passing, paranormal phrase. Mired, resonant and raw. A stellar, lunar acquisition for Moribund, which will hopefully exceed the extremely limited cassette format it was previously released upon. Kills.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com