Review
Dodenbezweerder
Vrees de Toorn van de Wezens Verscholen Achter Majestueuze Vleugels

You ever get lost while driving in the woods at night? I grew up in Wisconsin and this happened to me often before I got a GPS. It will spook you good if you're not careful. The roads stretch into the night and disappear into the surrounding landscape. The roads become more narrow the longer you drive. Low hanging branches reaching out to scrap your windshield and the roof of your car as you pass. When you have to stop to look at a map, you can hear dry leaves rustling all around you as well as the disquieting crack of fallen branches dividing under the foot of an indiscernible creature. You can drive through those purgatorial woods for hours and never find your way back to the highway, all the while wondering if you're being followed. The debut album from Dutch black metal band Dodenbezweerder, is like that. Only the woods are a cemetery, and there is definitely something in your rearview mirror.

Dodenbezweerder, which translates into "necromancer" in English, is the latest project from Maurice de Jong, shortened here to just M. He is best known for his chaotic, and largely electronic, black metal project Gnaw Their Tongues. Dodenbezweerder is significantly different in character from Gnaw Their Tongues, but is no less terrifying in its ambitious to rip your soul from your weak mortal frame. The difference for Dodenbezweeder is the reliance on black metal's essentials: guitar, drum, feedback and vocals that sound like they are being performed by an animal that recently had all its skin removed. There is also quite a bit of synth on this record, which feels like it is pulling more than its weight at times in filling out the sound, but in general, it is welcome as a way of adding texture and gravity to the mix.

I've heard Vrees de Toorn van de Wezens Verscholen Achter Majestueuze Vleugels (Fear The Wrath Of Creatures Tucked Behind Majestic Wings in English) described as "raw black metal." But even with its clear French black metal influences, that description doesn't quite sit right. Dodenbezweeder places a premium on atmosphere as evident on the weeping hymn, "Opgeslokt door de ontzielde." While there are some sections of charbroiled Bathory worship, such as "Glimmende zwaarden door de," which features some mean, scything pendulum-like grooves, and the dark rush of "Zalf de voeten van het hoof," which may have its share of Mütiilation tucked beneath its scales, these tracks don't lean into the sheer pandemonium and weirdness that raw black metal is best known for, which is to its credit actually. Despite its miasmic packaging, Dodenbezweeder feels tightly constructed and consciously plotted in a way that a lot of black metal that swings for the fences just doesn't. The track that sells the labyrinthine atmosphere and deliberate, malic of intent for me is the opener "Vrees de toorn van de wezen." From the track's stalking beat, to the harsh beehive-like chatter that swarms around its guitar tones, to the desiccated distant cry of de Jong's vocals, it is the embodiment of sleep-paralysis in a haunted house. Capturing the panic brought on by the appearance of a figure at the foot of your bed, the moonlight filtering through its shroud, giving it a sickly hallow. You can just make out the outline of its skeletal face and its teeth glint at you from between its receding gums. Your mind reels in an attempt to force your limbs to move, but your hands and feet lie motionless as if at rest, defiant of your commands, leaving you prone, helpless. I can't think of any other album I've heard this year that can conjure as harrowing of a sense of dread. Dodenbezweeder's debut is a ghastly as atmospheric black metal gets and thoroughly terrifying listen. If it doesn't have you checking over your shoulder for the rest of the week, then you must not have been listening closely enough. And when that thing that has been lingering in the corner of your eye finally corners you, you'll have no one to blame but yourself.