But 2012 is the year of a rebirth, a magic one … Lychgate play a kind of epic, powerful black metal dominated by keyboards and organs. You may call it “orchestral” metal but imagine it as light years far away from the boring bloat of symphonic metal.
Lychgate can do the miracle because this is a league of experienced metallers from awesome acts. The band originates from the ashes, or better from the metamorphosis, of Archaicus, an over 10 years-old solo project started by Vortigern, multi-instrumentalist and frontman in several black metal bands (e.g., The One). For the rebirth Vortigern (on guitars, chants, keyboards and organ) involved none less than Greg Chandler (vocals and guitars) from doom monster band Esoteric, Aran (on bass) from the German atmospheric black metal band Lunar Aurora and, not least, T. J. F. Vallely (on drumming and percussions) from the dark and nasty creature Omega Centauri, among others.
Basically a monster line-up …
So you may expect Lychgate as being a hybrid beast because the bands where these fellow musicians militate are known to elaborate and do experimentation on sounds in spite of being firmly rooted in the so-called “old school” metal. Back to the tag issue, one option is to tag Lychgate as “atmospheric”, “progressive” black metal or “art” metal. But tags would miss the amazing richness in Lychgate. Lychgate is a sort of ancient magic cauldron where someone poured abundant doses of pathos and brutality, say, à-la-Bathory, Taake and Marduk (or at your choice!), side by side with the technics and the atmospheres of Death, Opeth, Edge of Sanity and Katatonia, the avantgarde-jazzy escapes like in Virus, archaic raw and occult keyboard-driven horror prog doom like that in Winter and Abysmal Grief respectively, noise, psychedelia, ecc. And, when the whole nasty lot starts boiling, there come lethal but ethereal vapours smelling of Alcest … This is basically the recipe of Lychgate’s self-titled debut album, 9 tracks for almost 38 minutes, a tormented trip into another time, into the pitch-black tunnel suggested by the gloomy cover art (signed by Manuel Tinnemans).
Two tracks are about one minute-long and act as intro and relieving interval to a crazy vortex depicted by the other seven tracks. These tracks are incredibly multifaceted but never too lengthy, 6 minutes-long maximum. This band has a great ability in symthesys while writing music, a skill allowing them roaming across different genres, mix the latter into a chaotic-sounding tangle and eventually loose it and close in an almost natural and elegant way. Often tracks start or else develop a core possessing the crypt-like sounds or the hellish and obsessive charge typical of classic black metal. However soon the guys unleash their love for technics by means of series of very fast and complex or else nervous riffs (like in track In Self Ruin). Or else riffs may develop via hypnotic and tormented circular patterns (e.g., in Sceptre to Control the World). Technics is not going to intoxicate you, though, as slow and solemn doom will come as a balming intervals where the thundering melodies impressively build up from sounds elaborated on different parallel plans. Especially in these doomy sections organ is the king. Keyboard sounds echo in a solemn, menacing way and drown the raw brutality of black metal in occult and morbid atmospheres. However often the reverbered sound of the organ is what helps in turning the gruesome torment into liquid melodies and ethereal atmospheres heard in psychedelic post-black metal and shoegaze. There will always be the obsessive, martial beat of the drums in the background, though, reminding you that this is a nasty band …
Like drumming, also Greg Chandler’s growled vocals are overwhelmed by the cacophony of guitars and drums, although this hellish mess is going to make singing even scarier, both when Greg is roaring like a beast during the black metal assaults and when he is letting his tormented doom soul speak. After the atmospheric central interval dominated by keyboards and occult chants, it is the time for two awesome tracks, Triumphalism e Dust of a Gun Barrel. These ballads broadly follow the scheme written above, although they are particularly haunting and deeply incorporate the influence of the old project Archaicus and of the bands from where the members of this super-group stem. Track Triumphalism is opened by a peculiar coupling between a syncopated drumming pattern and a dreamy, psychedelic combination of organ and reverbered guitars before the black metal nuclear explosion. Yet what comes after is a magnificent blend of bestial frenzy and complex and elegant melodies, crazy accelerations and breathtaking slow-downs. The pulsating, syncopated drumming beat will there, in the background before everything will dissolve into dreamy black shoegaze.
The track Dust of a Gun Barrel, has a dissonant and jazzy avantgarde start before opening the cage and letting the beast and its evil soul out. But there is always space for atmosphere, like, for example, in the sudden, beautiful interruption halfway through the track, where the chords of an acoustic guitar are vibrating in a pre-storm silence. What will follow is actually a doleful and sometimes epic melody contaminated and “refreshed” by some dissonance and curious diversions.
For closing this magnificent album, the band will leave bestiality and choose a proggy/shoegaze mood. As a matter of fact, the final track, When Scorn Can Scourge No More, tends to develop like a charming hybrid between Alcest and Opeth when lead by a rather mellow guitar sound.
This is the way I experienced Lychgate’s debut album, although further listening in varying moods might surely reveal more and more details and features of this extremely rich yet quite concise album. Surely one of the side-effects of enjoying this album is the push to go and refresh memory about the fine bands related to Lychgate and, thus, prolongue the magic. So Lychgate is much much welcome for energetically adding to the group of the eclectic bands contributing to renew and enrich the international black metal panorama either with experimentation or by straying boundaries across genres. I am thinking about Negative Plane, Oranssi Pazuzu, Nachtmystium, Ludicra, Paroxsihzem, etc.
Lychgate’s debut album is out on Gilead Media as LP and via Mordgrimm Records as CD/digital version. So there are no excuses for missing this beautiful release, which is malevolent and fierce, technical as well as very involving for its richness and inspiration drenching each track. I’m here, waiting for more to come, with my rapacious beak open like a baby vulture …
Words. Marilena Moroni
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