Incursus – Adaestuo 12” MLP
Most often, batshit black metal vocals fail to be matched in their shrieking, seemingly free-verse tortured intensity by equally-important riffs that buttress them. But those bands do not have VJS in them (ex-Demoncy, ex-Kult of Azazel, etc, also currently in Nightbringer, Hexenwald, etc). This American black metal journeyman performs all instruments on the enticing Adaestuo, four songs of exquisite dark mindfuckery anyone that haunts unsavory forums in the wee hours in corpsepaint and little else will be adding to their closet-size vinyl collection, and let me tell you, the guitars unsettle as much as the murder victims voicings of Horidus do. With distorted chords ripping back and forth across sonic flesh like a blunt knife, the arrangements push their way into your skull with the symmetry and precision of the nails in a certain Hellraiser’s famous cranium. Weird, almost-melody lines, reminiscent of mid-period (in my opinion, the best) Blut Aus Nord, sidled with expertly concocted hell-sounds redden the edges of Incursus’ gristle-getter structures, giving the listener the effect of being verbally assaulted by a horde of banshees when VJS runs high up the fretboard in search of unholy communion. All the while, Horidus eviscerates earholes with death screams like those straight out of an Italian horror flick (choose one).
Besides the blasting battery we expect out of a pure black metal album, the element that gives Adaestuo its strength is a single, yet undeniable strand of spellcasting that pulls each of the MLP’s four tracks together in wondrous cacophony. A wickedness results from the pairing of VJS and Horidus and the sounds they excrete, and that wickedness – even on the noise/ambient/no drums/instrumental closer – frightens in a way few records can to these old auditory receptors. Looking for a way to be moved that no normal person would deign sensible? Then spin this, supplicant! -Jim
Forever Plagued
Worm Gear 