Artist: Daedric Chamber
Title: Enslaved Unto The Chasm
Type: Album
Label: Digital / Grime Stone Records / Nightblade Records
‘Elder Scrolls Themed Raw Black Metal’ anyone? Deadric Chamber have been popping in and out of my world for a year or two but as is the way this album was my first headlong descent into Oblivion (see what I did there?)
‘Chaotic Creatia’ was from the off what hooked me into this album: A fast clatter of drums and a guitar pushed behind them but, suddenly, the most strange, curious and utterly compelling almost prog tune scampers out over the top. Once escaped we fall into a slower moment, catch our breath and off we go with the weirdness. Imagine fast dungeon synth but played by a black metal band. I want to use the word ‘charming’ but that sounds too nice. This is strange, wonderful and that prog infused melody spliced to black metal is just outstanding. The slow passages are bleak, disturbed but also infused with a sense of wonder. And yes this is still black metal. That tune resurfaces as a variation, the prog element showing once more, and then it fades.
‘The Weight Of Three Crowns’ is denser, but the guitar is doing its own thing again and suddenly it hits me. Slough Feg. If you know them, the guitar has that Scalzi touch, the same off kilter approach to isolated melody dancing to its own beat and impossible to ignore. Now splice that into black metal and there you are. Kind of. But also Deadric Chamber have a pretty much distinctive in one and a half song way for writing the time changes, the surge of the song, taking detours and returning to the root.
Damn me I am actually so impressed.
Now this is also raw stuff so with songs like ‘Seduced Into Torment’ the shadows close in, the riff get dense and more determined and the vocals slip what hold they have on sanity. The ten minute epic ‘Enslaved Into The Chasm’ has an achingly slow, ponderous pace. It reaches into both DSBM and doom before finding its way wandering down some twisted little path into darkness. This is actually quite beautiful; the deft touch of the melody, the softness belying the raw black metal shell around it. I’m not sure I’ve been quite as impressed by a fantasy game inspired work since Visigoth’s monumental ‘Abysswalker’. It descends into utter despair, the vocals stretched and haunted, the music somehow still holding the last threads of a sorrowful awe. The deep drum sound is captured perfectly. The progression through the song unto its end perfect.
‘Harvest Heart’ almost begins with an Amon Amarth riff before the black metal closes around us and the Daedric Chamber magic is sprinkled through with light notes and a melody so hook riddled we’re in Hellraiser territory. Again the vocals are so good; varied, expressive and full of character. The guitar work is exemplary, the layering excellent without being fussy and the whole song just mesmeric.
The album closes with two long tracks, ‘Weeping In Lightless Void’ and ‘Meridia’. The former introduces some clean vocals which work well in the context as a background to the harsh ones. The latter too indulges, the song being a slow and bleak twist of the knife that proceeds on its despairing path towards a being ‘born of light but without love’ if my lore is correct. It is a melancholic coda, without hope.
Honestly this is just such a wonderful album to discover. The vision, the idiosyncratic but deeply talented approach to black metal with rich threads of prog and dungeon synth creating an otherworldly weave truly fitting for the subject matter. Whether you’re an Elder Scrolls fan or not matters not one iota; Deadric Chamber have a very personal, strange and wonderful view out over the world of raw black metal and I strongly suggest you take a walk across their borders.
A strange and awe filled world indeed.
Gizmo
https://daedricchamber.bandcamp.com/
Walking The Liminal Space 