It’s been six years since the last malformed utterances of The Great Old Ones, but now the French H.P. Lovecraft worshippers have returned from the cosmic void, not only with new album Kadath (Season of Mist) but with a change in direction.
For their fifth full-length studio release, the band step away from The Cthulhu Mythos and instead venture into Lovecraft’s Dreamlands cycle – a series of short works and novellas including the likes of “Nyarlathotep,” “The Cats of Ulthar,” “Azathoth,” and of course, “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath,” a story in which protagonist Randolph Carter seeks the fabled city of Kadath.
Not content with a mere thematic metamorphosis, TGOO also find themselves evolving even further musically. Still rooted in the unnamable post-black metal darkness of before, the five-piece are now more confident – even accessible – this despite some of their most progressive, exploratory, and complex work to date.
“Me, the Dreamer” opens with swirling atmospherics before vocalist Benjamin Guerry’s rasping cry of “Kadath!” sweeps you into a typically ferocious maelstrom of black metal. Opening up into something more melodic, Gregory Vouillat‘s bass becomes the pulse of the song as the guitars hack and slash their way through the eldritch dreamscape. Drummer Julian Deana joins Vouillat as the backbone during the cut’s slower, more ominous moments while also adopting a more frenzied approach as the pace inevitably quickens.
After beginning with gentle acoustics, “Those from Ulthar” is classic TGOO. Guerry’s vocals sound like they’re being roared from a cave while guitarists Aurélien Edouard and Hugo Bernart chug and tremolo pick to the brink of insanity. Once again around the midpoint, the bass adopts a more progressive style as the song slows down to an atmospheric crawl in order to unleash another octopoid Lovecraftian nightmare.
With the exception of the instrumental interlude “The Gathering,” “In the Mouth of Madness” is the baby of the album at a mere seven minutes in length. Mid-paced and melodic, it’s also quite possibly the closest thing to genuinely accessible the band have ever recorded. “Under the Sign of Koth” follows, the speed and intensity returning with a quivering intensity on another cut which sounds like their previous selves while adding something more forward-thinking.
If the album has a highest point then could very well be “Leng.” It is a deeply absorbing fifteen-minute behemoth of progressive black metal perfection. From rumbling lows to piercing highs, from fast-picked riffs to groove-filled chugs, the track never loses focus, never tries to do too much too fast and sustains the mood while developing its personality as it progresses. Oh, and it’s an instrumental.
“Astral Void (End of the Dream)” closes the record with a malevolently viperous blast that includes lines such as, “Great polypous horrors” and “For I am Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos.” Although on certain versions of the album you also get ‘Second Rendez-Vous’ an eleven-minute instrumental piece far too good for mere “bonus track” status.
Unafraid to venture onto fertile new ground and make bold decisions (following one instrumental with another and then making it the longest track on the record isn’t for everyone), The Great Old Ones embrace both familiar and different forms of darkness on Kadath, creating something special that might see them arise like Cthulhu from beneath the sea.
Buy the album here:
https://orcd.co/tgookadath
9 / 10
GARY ALCOCK
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