Artist: Unaussprechlichen Kulten
Country: Chile
Label: Iron Bonehead Productions
Formats: LP / CD
Year: 2024
Chile’s Unaussprechlichen Kulten has been formed all the way back into the late 90’s and have been releasing music with great regularity. That they have not been sitting still much in their career is not only evidenced by the rather extensive discography, making this new ‘Häxan Sabaoth’ their sixth full-length, but certainly also by an unmistakable musical development. When I first got into their music, with the 2010 vinyl version of their second album ‘People Of The Monolith’ released by Blood Harvest, two years after its initial release, I thought it was a good album but not exactly spectacular. I kept that idea for a few years, but although I didn’t got all of their records, I was impressed by the musical progression they were able to bring to the table.
That development eventually brought them to this latest offering, an album that could easily be considered their best work to date. ‘Häxan Sabaoth’ has very little to do with the blunt force old-schoolism that was ‘People Of The Monolith’. Along the way, the band has incorporated a load of melodic and technical elements into its music, making it way more versatile and even a tad unpredictable. Despite some signs over the past few recordings already indicated a more dramatic shift in musical direction, I must admit that this newest offering of the Chileans is rather surprising. In a good way. Adding an increasing amount of (Heavy Metal-based) melodicism and technical aspects to the music already gave the band much more of an own identity, but with adding even some distinct progressive components, Unaussprechlichen Kulten has become a totally different beast.
Although there is still a lot of old school bits and pieces, basically scattered all over the album, I can imagine that for those who prefer their Death Metal more straight forward ‘Häxan Sabaoth’ might be a bridge too far. Take a song like ‘Dho Hna Formula’ for instance, the otherworldly song structures and unexpected twists and turns, makes it one of the best songs the band has ever written. The progressive nature of the song is symbolic for what the band anno 2024 stands for: utterly mesmerizing and challenging Death Metal. Making the music so unorthodox and puzzling, it increasingly fits better to their Lovecraftian name and lyrical proposition. It is just as dark, twisted and unfathomable, but first and foremost extremely engaging.
