![]() ![]() But yes, those fleeting moments are fuck all in the grand scheme of things and the rest of the album is nothing but wholesale arcane annihilation. For a few seconds we are momentarily transported to the deck of said sea vessel, perhaps listening to the haunting sounds of a spectral piano entertaining the long-gone guests at dinner… fascinating bookends that add depth and narrative intrigue to the album. With various related track titles across the record I’m sure this theme is even more coherent than it seems at first glance hopefully I get to read the lyrics one day, or chat to Vardlokker.Īs relentless as it all is, there are a couple of brief respites from the chaos and destruction at the either end of album centerpiece ‘Nebulous Ghost Ship’. ![]() You want to know what’s going on here? Just look at that artwork. The sheer abject horror of this idea is exactly the DNA of this track as the churning composition grows to a monolithic size, overpowering all and consuming all in its path in hateful, inhuman wrath… also much like the great cover art, which depicts this well. They appear as animated corpses, swollen and blackened, with mystical abilities and a tendency to drag men to their deaths. The “Draugr” are mythological undead wraiths bound to the oceans, reeking of decay. ‘Whispering Martyr’ is then pure menace… before the title track ‘Seas Of Draugen’ really digs into what appears to be the central theme of the album. On this track (and quite often throughout the rest of the record) the guitars are utterly monstrous with riffs that simply decimate, reverberating through hell as the corrosive low vocals eat everything in their path like acid. With five previous emissions to the project’s name this year alone and each being equally as terrifying as the last, this was always gonna be a good one and opener ‘The Nun Collector’ wastes no time in ripping you downwards into its cavernous maw. Now add some ritualistic resonations and punishing rhythmic pulsations occult mania and a frenzied, lurching force that repeatedly slams into your body and threatens to tear it limb from limb… yeah, now you’re getting close to the assault at hand. The cacophonic carnage conjured is something else – imagine raw, cavernous black death. Take all the pain, all the filth and all the disease packed up in the morbid halls of this place and you’d only be a quarter of the way towards the depths plumbed by prolific solo practitioner Vardlokker. Someone else fairly close by is vomiting so vigorously and viciously I’d swear they’ve lost at least two thirds of their internal organs onto the cold linoleum floor… and I am listening to The Seas Of Draugen, the fucking hideous new album from US solo wraith Witchbones. The man next to me is in so much pain he sounds like a wild beast being fucked raw by a bigger, wilder beast. ![]() The elderly gent across from me is stuck in a surreal continuous loop, folding and refolding the blanket across his legs over and over and over, as he has been for the past hour and a half. I am writing this in a makeshift bed somewhere deep in the bowels of the emergency department of my local hospital. ![]()
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