Deathspell Omega
Fas - Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum

"For the divine law - go away, cursed one, into eternal fire!"

The latest chapter from Deathspell Omega is a unique journey and precisely because of its peculiarity, I am torn between considering it a true fortune or a misfortune. It is an album so complicated and intricate that it can probably only be assimilated after many long and fateful listens, and I don't say this because it's black metal (?).

If its predecessor "Si Monvmentvm Reqvires, Circvmspice" was undoubtedly considered a masterpiece of enormous scope, this "Fas...", in addition to dividing fans, leaves an open debate about the quality of its sound and especially about the new technique adopted by the mysterious Deathspell.

To immediately understand what "Fas" aims at, just listen to the first notes of "Obombration", which emerge from a long and murky minute of muffled sounds and deep echoes. The album aims at nothing and precisely for this reason, it achieves two distinct results: total incomprehension (ergo: disgust) or a slimy, disarming sensation of conscious introspective anguish. Bitter and chanting arpeggios, seemingly random, aim to numb and at the same time capture the listener, dragging him into the bowels of the earth, depriving him of every glimmer of light, and finally blinding him cruelly. This is the goal of the album: nothingness and what derives from it.

"The Shrine of Mad Laughter" confirms this thesis: over ten minutes of tumbles, falls, ominous silences, stop-and-go, incomprehensible and shrill riffs, absurd assaults of disorienting drums and growls much deeper and hoarser than "SMRC"; all this evokes the terrifying image of a bottomless abyss in which one is destined to fall for eternity. The hyperuranium of black and the apotheosis of ontological deprivation.

After completing this first, exhausting episode, the listener will probably remain perplexed, whether negatively or positively; it will be up to them to decide whether to continue staring into the empty pupil of the abyss or abandon the vertiginous endeavor.

Continuing down the steep path, we will be flooded by the overwhelming and suffocating swamp of muddy riffs in "Bread of Bitterness" and those moments of silent darkness will certainly not be missing, during which we can grasp some lowly foothold to catch our breath and simultaneously reflect on the destination of this sinister journey without hope. "The Repellent Scars of Abandon and Election" blinds and corrodes the eye of our mind, with its hesitant and floating initial arpeggios, and in its long duration, it will be our pilot without destination, our escape without escapes, our tears without crying.

With "A Chore for the Lost", we also see frantic sobs coming into play, while the riffs continue to be everything but graspable or even conceivable: now deep and buzzing, now sharp and bouncing, now not even there... This track is the banner of impending damnation. "Obombration", a reprise of the opening track, is instead the deserving (as well as unexpected) conclusion of an album like "Fas": two orchestral minutes, a solemn hymn to despair and the perfect soundtrack for the merciless and irrevocable divine judgment. "Fas - Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum" ends in the most disconcerting nothingness.

Deus, Judica Me
... Et Factus est sudor eius sicut guttae sanguinis decurrentis in Terram...
Domine, in pulverem mortis deduxisti me...
PERINDE AC CADAVER!