I covered the prior Oreamnos release, Into the Night, and it was as I was expected considering Schott’s (who does drums and vocals here) other projects – a filthy, grimy take on oozing discordant death metal. But when the guitarist and bassist for the band Sam ‘The harp’, emailed me the promos and said they had added some HM2 groove to their sound I was skeptical.

Well, I was wrong.

Now, structurally this is still filthy, undulating death/doom, and still has Schott’s unfathomable, monstrous growls and that Cabinet/Sxuperion stench, but by god, it is indeed now rendered with a disgustingly heavy Hm2 Swedish guitar tone and also has a little more groove and rumble amid the cavernous, filthy throes.

The six lengthy songs and intro have a slightly different pace and gait than Into the Night, as if someone took Entrails, slowed them down to half speed, and mixed it with Seep or Schott’s other projects. And it’s huuuuuuuge. I mean the groove a minute into “Pendulum” is just revolting, or the “Stairs Leading to Nowhere” with its massive build and filthy Swedish canter at 3;38, and another surprisingly deft Swedish death metal gallops toward the end of “Lizard Eater” as well as the opening riff of “Granite Walls” are just sickeningly heavy.

I’m happy to be wrong on this one, Oreamnos has made a killer development to their sound and made an absolutely filthy album of death/doom with a gnarly, nasty Hm2 sound that just makes it even filthier.

And what we have here is some light hearted, proggy, power metal with falsetto vocals that.………Nah…… this is fucking filthy, murky, discordant death-doom with unmistakable strains of all his other projects. Honestly, at this point, I’m hard-pressed to differentiate all his projects, as they are all pretty much in the same icky wheelhouse, just varying levels of ick. The specific ick in Cabinet, is a more atmospheric, sometimes plodding take on Portal on barbituates levels of nausea, with a central theme of dying in an asylum.

It essentially has the same guitar tone and distant cavernous vocals (though rarely used) as his other projects but is delivered with a more restrained, doomy, scrawling pace. Whereas say Sxuperion is this other worldly, sci-fi, cosmic, alien atmosphere, this is more of a seplophobic, decaying, shit smeared on windows, fingernails embedded in walls, rancid, piss-soaked beds, and well….Claustrophobic Dysentery type of vibe, and it’s his nastiest iteration yet. Tracks like “Entering Into The Mold”, “Gradually Melting Into Self-Diminution And Dust” and “The Concluding Decomposition Of Cubical Claustrophobia / Manifesting The Eternal Circumambulation Of Slowly Pulverized Decay” is the musical equivalent of walking around an abandoned mental hospital while on LSD, phenobarbital AND meth. It really is only for hardened, dedicated listeners, as it’s not an easy listen at all, but what Schott projects are?

Still, amid the foul, droning is, there is still some atonal rumbling to be heard like “Captured In Permanent Presentiment Of The Cornered Musk ” and “Immortally In Perpetuum” deliver that familiar Valdur, Oreamnos and Sxuperion discordant churn that Schott revels in, and will no doubt continue to revel in for future projects and releases.

A more black, cosmic, sci-fi-themed version of Valdur is where this project still lies. And now fully ascended into the cosmos with song titles like “Ophanim Mechanical Drive”, “Irreverential Cistern” and “Licentious Arbitrator” ( as opposed to the likes of “Satanic Idol Whoreship” and “Inverted Goat Orifice” from the early releases), the murky dissonance is a little more theoretically celestial than his other projects.

But like his other projects, Auscultating Astral Monuments is a dense, discordant listen with nothing memorable or catchy, just pure otherworldly filth injected with a few fitting moments of ambiance (ie “Initiative Reactor”). And while it can be generally said, most spacey/cosmic metal has a bit of celestial elegance to it, Auscultating Astral Monuments is the deep, dark unknown blackness. Tracks like standouts “The Mote in God’s Eye” and “Philotic Astrogation” (which has haunting angelic vocals), deliver a crippling, ritualistic sci-fi cacophony that isn’t an easy listen, especially with Schott’s distant howls and shrieks and growls forever present.

A surprisingly expansive number, the 5 minutes “Forever and Ever” ends the succinct 33-minute affair with the album’s most ‘listenable’ song, being a little more doomy and atmospheric, but still, the overall seraphic nausea is still strong and Sxuperion remains a very niche listen.

And by wheelhouse, it’s the similarly murky blackened death metal. Albeit a tad cleaner, slightly more riff-based and more death metal. But it’s still a cavernous affair, that I’d put in the same area as the likes of Incantation and California’s Ruin, especially Schott’s absolutely dominating (almost overbearing) vocals.

The debut EP is 4 songs, 1 intro and 1 interlude (“Bombastic Utterances”). There are a few atmospheric bridges here and there with some light, mystical effects and samples going on behind the muddy, churning riffs. The riffs, while not quite as full-on ‘ick’ as Sxuperion of Valdur, as there is a slightly cleaner production, still ooze with hefty, malevolent intentions and dense lumbers.

The likes of “Shadow of Misery”, ‘Torrid Hate”, murky, militant throb of “March Towards Oblivion” and heaving plod of “Forlorn (Fire of Despair)” won’t have you humming or whistling along, but certainly deliver a ritualistic pummeling that presents the filthier side of death metal.

Whereas some side projects (again, I’m not sure which is main vs side here based on timed formed and discography) tend to be an artist’s outlet for something different to their other projects, but on this 7 song, 34 minute offering, one just has to look at Valdur’s offerings (i.e 2017s Divine Cessation or 2018s Goat of Iniquity) for a glimpse as to the sound heard on Endless Spiritual Embodiment. Oppressive, claustrophobic blackened death metal, though here it does appear to lean a bit more towards death metal.

And when I say death metal, I mean the cavernous, murky, miasmal kind of  icky death metal. Think Incantation, Miserist, Phrenelith, Golgothan Remains, etc dragged through a cosmic void between heaven and hell. It’s got those distant cavernous howls and growls and a guitar tone from the bowls of hell. There  are a few moments of swirling atmospherics that break up or lead into tracks (including a really jarring transition that explodes into “Infinite Ethereal Vault”), but for the most part, it’s a relentless tumble of blasting murk.

Case and point, the first 3 tracks “Sacred Chamber of Enlightenment” (other than a mid song lope), “Phallic Point of Periapsis” and “Negative Interior Intersection” are a nauseating caustic trio before fourth track “Supposition Course” we get a bit a respite in the song’s early stages. Then it’s back to the ritualistic vortex of “Infinite Ethereal Vault”. 10 minute closer “Endless  Embodiment” is the album’s most varied track, that could be a Valdur track , as it feels a little ‘blacker’ at times and almost feel a little like it was part of a different writing or recording session? But that could be just me.

Either way, if Hell had an elevator- this would be the music playing in it.

Second, Valdur has quickly released their 6th album, barely a year after their last effort, Divine Cessation, came out. How’s that for production?

Third, the band appears to have swung the pendulum ever so slightly back towards their black metal roots from the pure, noisy atonal death metal murk of Divine Cessation.

While the cavernous vocals are still here, the guitars appear to be not as down-tuned and there are more shrill, tremolo-picked ish riffs rather than pure dirty lurches and rumbles. Sure there are some, but its much more of a black/death balanced record than the predecessor. Just listen to opener “Divine Halls of Obscurity pt.I” or disturbing experimental instrumental ish number “Spiritual Exhaust (The Beyond)”. Heck, the riffs from “Inhale the Floodgates Open” could be from Ulver’s notorious second record.

Also, like its predecessor, the album is 6 songs and about a 37 minute run time. So its a very brisk, brittle, but spiteful little record. These prolific Californians (metal archives lists 17 releases since 2015) have have hit a nasty, noisy niche since 2015s Pathetic Scum, but I’m curious if the band can continue being so productive and vicious without a drop off in quality.

Divine Cessation would sit nicely along side the likes of Auroch or Abyssal, as it has a cavernous, chaotic prose and deep, distant, imposing roars with just a hint black metal atmosphere. The Incantation-y lurches and blasts meld with discordant, murky tremolo blasts, that are black metal in backbone, but rip with the stench of putrid and ugly death metal dissonance.

There is little to no memorability (and no more Scandinavian song titles), just a muddy, dark ritualistic pulse and throb as heard in the crushing 7 minute title track (one of three tracks clocking in over 7 minutes) or the aptly named “Seething Disgust”. The shorter “Doomed” changes things up (or down?) a bit with a crawling instrumental that has some Incantation-isms, before another short track, “Plague Born of a Dying Star” seems to have a little more influence of the the band’s earlier style with  some screams and some higher tuned riffs.

Almost 8 minute Closer” Potent Black Orb” finds the perfect balance between the tidal murk of the first 4 tracks though it wastes the middle couple and final or so minutes with electronic ambient nonsense. Still, Divine Cessation is a killer release from a band that has made a successful transition between styles with impressive results.