Trepaneringsritualen
Perfection & Permanence

THE REVIEW

After more than a year without reviews, I want to return with a bang, a deafening bang.

"Trepaneringsritualen," this is one of the pseudonyms of the Swede Thomas Martin Ekelund: a name, a whole (beautiful) program. The ritual of skull trepanation.
As you can already imagine, this is the intent of this project: to annihilate the listener when these 'rituals' are performed, which could be a record or a live performance; particularly during the live experience, Ekelund aims to annihilate to the maximum of his capabilities and possibilities a good part of the sensory organs: hearing, sight, and smell.

Before addressing the auditory field, however, it seems right to say a few words about sight and smell. Why? Because the stage presence of Ekelund in his performances is extreme, surely inspired by the most legendary Black Metal acts, lathering and smearing his face with animal blood, sometimes even filling his own irises with that same mixed animal blood, including his own. The same blood probably soaks a kind of jute hood (practically a small potato sack) worn during his stage entries... the smell can only be imagined.

But let’s get back to "Perfection & Permanence," released in 2014, but discovered by me only recently, alas.
It could all be summarized like this: Ekelund is a starving hyena, wounded but excited by pain, moving in a semi-deserted nocturnal factory, always on alert. An inhospitable environment for a hyena but not for this one, ready to tear apart and devour cold metal sheets, electrical cables, and anything that might come in its way.

The voice unleashed is like the sinister laughter of the hyena, always ready to launch a deadly attack, capable of sucking you into a black hole. The sonic assaults create grim and distressing atmospheres, creating that sensation of weakness and inability to react to what might happen at any moment.

Objectively, contrary to what one might imagine, it is a relatively accessible product, compared to other examples belonging to such sounds; I recommend "A Black Egg", "Alone/A/Cross/Abyss", and "The Seventh Man" for those who want to give a chance to this infernal creation. If you prefer to accompany yourself with a video of one of his concerts, even better!

Galensorg is back...?