Artist: Drowning The Light
Country: Australia
Label: Dark Adversary Productions
Formats: CD
Year: 2025
With ‘Conquer Or Serve V: Setapophian Black Magick’, the fifth album in the cycle of new releases of the prolific Australian Black Metal act, Drowning The Light closes the ride that was good for over two hours and half of new material. Although I enjoyed every bit of all five of the records, I am happy that this was all divided on five separate albums to keep things a bit more manageable. I personally am not a fan of very long albums and each of these five chapters has a playing time of about half an hour with two outliers to 38 minutes: a perfect way to work your way through this vast amount of new music.
The five albums are tied together thematically and also musically they feel very close to each other. When you put them all on the autopsy table one by one there is of course a lot to say about the differences and you also find those parts where the music is in alignment. This immediately makes it clear that you do have to go into real depth to make these analyses. This has the disadvantage that the masses will probably lump everything together, but the real aficionado (and fortunately there are quite a few of them) will enjoy spending many hours putting everything side by side and discovering the meaning behind the music. After all, Azgorh is someone who not only delivers music, but with it a whole experiential world of philosophy, occultism and ancient cosmic, almost religious, views.
‘Conquer Or Serve V: Setapophian Black Magick’ is basically the overarching theme of basically all five of these new records – and quite some of his previous ones as well. But while Setapophian Black Magick is the common denominator here, the music on this fifth instalment fits best to the second album in this series. Basically positioned between the records of the 10’s and the ones from more recent years: combining some outspoken Black Metal riffs, although not as sharp, with rather accessible melodies and a modest pace.
Because of this album feels like a concoction of all sort of familiar elements out of the Drowning The Light formula, it serves as a perfect closing chapter of this more than interesting ‘Conquer Or Serve’-adventure. Especially the waning moments of the album, the dreamy and lulling ‘Timeless Dissolve’ with Strix’s enchanting vocals, will leave you feeling fulfilled and content to reminisce about the many wonderful moments the five albums have brought you.
