Lurker Of Chalice
Lurker Of Chalice

San Francisco, humid and dimly lit basement. Remnants of a burrito on the coffee table. Massive Attack on the television. The old turntable plays Death In June. But it skips and plays at a slowed-down speed. On the walls, Black Metal band posters, crumpled, torn. They are pathetic.

A guy enters. He's crumpled too. His face can't be seen. It never will be. In his field, perhaps the best. Jeff has spent recent years playing across the United States, with friends and companions, mostly alone. Jeff Whitehead: that is Wrest, the mind behind Leviathan, member of Twilight, voice lent to friends Sunn O))).

And then Lurker Of Chalice.

Lurker Of Chalice is a disorienting project. "Lurker Of Chalice" is a disorienting album. It is the "La Masquerade Infernale" of Depressive.

Like the masterpiece by Arcturus, this album best sublimates the spirit of a musical genre and paradoxically does so by progressively moving away from what it symbolizes. Where the Norwegians united theatricality, anger, horror, and power of Scandinavian Black metal, even while forging a work distant from it, Wrest conceives an album that feeds on despair, anguish, and nihilism of the Depressive by remaining in territories separated from it. Ambient, Dark Ambient, Electronic, Doom, Funeral Doom. Very little Black. And not even the raw and blasphemous kind at that.

Lurker Of Chalice is the musical memory of the most decadent that has been produced in recent decades, revisited, corrected, distorted. Unique. Suddenly Neurosis find themselves jamming with Death In June, the cosmic sounds of Pink Floyd flirt with the majestic Black of Blut Aus Nord, the liquid guitars of Xasthur break the ethereal textures of Vinterriket.

The album is ideally divided into three distinct parts, but in the end, they seem to reveal a common path, both metamusical and existential. In the first part, extreme music is reread in the light of Ambient and sound experimentation; after a short introductory piece ("I"), with an epic and warlike flavor, where the drum machine’s drum rolls support a repetitive guitar riff, the focus shifts to the center of this first "Movement": "Piercing Where They Might". In theory, a piece of American black, indebted to the Depressive of Xasthur and Leviathan. In practice, something else: the voice is cold, mechanized by effects and distortions, it doesn’t sing, doesn’t scream, intones a cyber and nihilist paean. The main riff is raw, miserably relegated to the background, it only supports the lead one, which returns obsessively throughout the piece.

In the second part, the music flips over, crumples onto itself: the extreme gives way to the most absurd experimentation, always in line with the coldness and delicacy that characterize the album (even in the faster and heavier moments). "This Blood Falls As Mortal" and the other tracks of this central part explore places unknown to the extreme music listener (in the metal field) but still manage to captivate for the coherence they demonstrate with the concept that permeates the album. The last part changes skin again, a perfect synthesis of the previous two Movements: the extreme music of the beginning blends with the avant-garde of the central section to create something engaging. "Granite" reminds one of something by Blut Aus Nord, and something by Xasthur, but develops a personal style: a melodious and swirling bass riff guides the song where keyboards and clean vocal choirs create a moving and epic atmosphere. "Vortex Chalice" is a playful nod to the more Folk Apocalyptic-dedicated Neurosis, but mixes them with a really successful use of noise and electronics, with moments reminiscent of Novembre’s Novembrine Waltz for intensity and sentiment.

The compositional milestone of the album is the final song, "Fastened To The Five Points": a Funeral track, with an uncommon melodic taste. The heaviness of Doom is tempered by melancholy guitar and piano inserts, following a taste for the melody similar to that of Nocturnal Poisoning by Xasthur. It seems like a cross between My Shameful and Pink Floyd, those from "Wish You Were Here". Besides the grandeur of the compositions, the album is sprinkled with surreal elements that give a disturbing touch to the music; Wrest's spoken word enriches the more ethereal moments; "Paramnesia" which starts like an electro-jazz piece to culminate in a highly effective choral moment; the end of "Piercing.." with its skewed Mexican-flavored folk (!)...

Wrest's world is colorful and complex while remaining in dark territories: music and lyrics deviate from Malefic's (Xasthur) extremism, more tied to parallel worlds and absolute, intolerable sensations; that of Leviathan and Lurker Of Chalice is more open to let itself be contaminated by the real world, to filter and distort it through its own personality, to assimilate and transform it.

Published in a few thousand copies by the legendary THR and reprinted (but starting from other masters) by Southern Lord in 777 copies. The LOC project was born already concluded: another 4 albums in the same style have been composed but not yet released. Decide for yourself...