Description
A prolific force within the Australian black metal underground ILL OMEN has built a canon of enviably massive proportions – and not just massive in size but rather in the heights/depths to which mainman IV aims. Much like he has in his death metal-oriented vehicle TEMPLE NIGHTSIDE IV scours the murk with single-minded intent but with ILL OMEN he pursues a vision of black metal that’s ceremonial and sinuous often slowly drifting like fog lingering across an empty grave. Such was the case with 2016’s massive Ae.Thy.Rift – arguably IV’s perfection of slo-mo blackdoom – and here he returns with his first recording since that critically acclaimed third album. And yet The Grande Usurper is a grand break from the gooey stretched-out expanses of AE.Thy.Rift. No less murky instead IV sends the listener on a wild ride through the most bestial recesses of the characteristic ILL OMEN sound. Across its four-song/25-minute runtime The Grande Usurper roils and revels among the filth pulsing with barely contained rage as mind-melting solos yawn slowly up from the crypt invoking that same sense of delirium as Ae.Thy.Rift but faster. Altogether it’s a record that consolidates all the gnarled ‘n’ gnarling weapons within the ILL OMEN arsenal but wields them in obscene and horrifyingly new ways. Hideous energy slipstreaming songwriting coffin-bound atmosphere crushed: here is revealed The Grande Usurper.
