Artist: Woe Bather
Title: Swallowed By The Chains Of Spirit Loss
Type: Album
Label: Digital / Phantom Lure
There are the odd band, particularly black metal, that although I am kind of aware of they only suddenly snag me out of the blue. Spectral Wound are a perfect example of a band whose debut cause a ripple or two in my little pond but their second one calmly walked across the water and slapped me across the face and I wondered why I had slept.
Now Woe Bather, and criminally this is the Hermit’s third album in a little over three years.
But I had seen a comment or two, literally in passing, so took a look and pressed play.
A choral opening, cathedral sounds, echoing choir and a slow, heavy riff that could have morphed into any metal genre but then the drum avalanche hits perfectly. The choral sounds persist but the utter howl of the lead vocals savage it. The song opens up into an utter mesmeric, riping and rending wall of sound the like of which I have not heard since the last Black Cilice album. Straight off the production is perfect for this and so everything hits; the melodic lines cut through cleanly and simply as the wall of noise and storm propels the track into a complete maelstrom. The rhythmic sitches are just gorgeous, jolting you mind, keeping you focussed on the destruction and despair before you. And yes, there is such despair here; a horrific collapse of hope as the darkness lashes me. Even the brief respite of half spoke female vocals whispering, offer no comfort.
Twelve minutes. Twelve. The opening and title track. I swear my mind didn’t wander for a moment.
The follow up ‘Witching Melancholic Majesty’ is more so. Tempestuous. Wild. Primal. It swirls around my head and pulls me under. It’s like being lost in a subterranean current fast, black and bitterly cold. A soft ending of deep notes. Surveying the wreckage. An incredible eleven minutes.
‘La Llorona Howl To Me’ is as haunting and savage as you might expect from such a title. The melody breathed by a spirit, hair raising and hypnotic, rises and falls seemingly pulling you closer so that the wild black waters grip you harder. That melodic touch is both heart aching and soul wrenching, a sound with the perfect rhythm that makes you want to listen to it turn around and around forever. Bewitching. A passage that twists into a chugging riff, a guitar break more heavy metal than you could expect. A moment that reminds me of Eric Draven’s rooftop guitar solo in The Crow bridging the waters to some spoken word, a rich female voice conjuring back the black metal and that melody once more.
‘Amidst The Fog Of La Lechuza’s Dawn’ has an almost Sergeist ‘Let The Devil In’ period deep, rich rhythmic melody. This one is almost claustrophobic. Like tracks before an after the deep vein of Mexican folklore moves through this a perfectly and silent as an owl hunting. It is so enticing though, so easy to fall for the song and follow it deeper into the darkness. And there, there is no hope. The bass break reveals the trap but there is no way to return now. She has you.
‘As The Hermit Weeps Alongside the Recasa’ is a gentle but introverted musical moment. Cut off from the source that birthed it, the acoustic guitar brings a stillness to the isolation. The sense of loss, the exhaling vocals, manage somehow to convey a sense of beauty but with little if any hope. And so ‘Wound Worship: A Moonlit Brujeria’ should have come as no surprise. It roars in and cuts flesh with the sound; again just something about the guitar working the melody and the superb drumming bring the shadow, just a touch, of Sargeist but only a touch. This is absolutely the howl of The Hermit. It breathes exhaustion for a moment, gathering itself for a last defiant scream.
‘Una Ofrenda A Tu Nombre’ closes the work. Slow, desolate to begin with. Doom laden black metal sound slowly building the presence around you before letting slip the restraints . Gradually the world slows once more until all that is left is a strumming acoustic, and the sound of me picking myself up.
Songs between eight and a half and thirteen and a half minutes long, over seventy minutes in total. Yet this holds you. It howls and claws and whispers and strokes you as it leads you astray.
Raw but magnificent, epic and feral. Absolutely 10/10 magnificence.
Gizmo
https://woebather.bandcamp.com/
https://phantomlure.myshopify.com/
https://www.cryptofthewizard.com/search?q=phantom+lure&options%5Bprefix%5D=last
Walking The Liminal Space 