Xasthur’s latest release is in no readily justifiable sense a black metal album, yet it clearly belongs in a continuum with Malefic’s previous work. For much of the time it sounds like a collection of instrumental out-takes from the preceding full-length release, Defective Epitaph, performed in a ruined cathedral by an orchestra of sighing zombies. The subtracted element is Malefic’s ghastly, searing howl, which makes only occasional appearances: for the most part, the vocals range between indistinct hissing, tormented groans, eerie sussurations and a quavery baritone that calls to mind the Tindersticks’ Stuart Staples mumbling into the folds of his tuxedo. There’s a sample (“I perceived everything and everyone in existence to be dead - including myself…”) which sounds a lot like Gwyneth Paltrow doing Sylvia Plath (as heard on Wrest’s Lurker of Chalice) but turns out, if I’m not mistaken, to be from this oddity:

Otherwise the invariants of Xasthur’s musical scheme are all in place: dominant minor ninths, repetition, spooky organs, repetition, guitars treated to sound like rusty steel drums, repetition, everything out of tune with everything else. Malefic plays the drums throughout, with a sort of commendable doggedness - he’s clearly not one to give up an instrument just because he’s crap at it (as witness also his continued agonizing over the cello). The titles you could make up for yourself: “obfuscated in oblivion”, “masquerade of incisions”, “maze of oppression”. (Here’s some for the next album: “catacomb of splinters”, “shroud of desolation”, “cipher of emptiness”, “errancy of the void”). It could all hardly be any drearier, although if you play the title track at about twice the speed the vocals take on a sort of campy urgency which is quite enjoyable in its own way.