dsknt

"Kr. Vy. Portals" is DSKNT's Window Into Hell

There is no shortage of black metal artists who deliver their work from behind a purposefully affected shroud of mystery. One of the latest comes from elusive entity DSKNT in the form of “hermetic, opaque, experimental, polymorphic, and abstract black metal exclusively glorifying and worshiping the annihilation of all existence”. Cool.

Some quick Googling reveals that DSKNT is the newest work from one-man black metal engine of destruction Asknt. Responsible either solely or in part for projects including Ab Occulto, AION, Exordium, and Necrosemen, Asknt continues his foray into a heinously twisted style of black metal as DSKNT with his upcoming release PhSPHR Entropy.

A window into this latest incarnation of blackened madness is available with the premiere of the dirgelike “Kr. Vy. Portals” below. The song begins mercilessly with a crushing sludge groove underpinned by pummeling drums that shift fluidly underneath the constant chug of the guitar, establishing a conflicting dualism that only grows stronger as the song progresses and intensifies.

Over the song’s course, and the album’s as a whole, the music is characterized by an unsettling war of impressions. The raw, windpipe-scraping vocals are undeniably sinister, cloaked in heavy reverb. The drums are a ceaseless storm of punishment that are never content to sit still in any one groove for more than too long. Blanketing the landscape in an oppressive cloud of dread are writhing guitar leads which ring out in foreboding tones.

Despite all this, the chord changes are markedly cathartic. Churning underneath the haze of abrasiveness are progressions that on a particularly sunny day might even be described as warm. The end result is an uncomfortable sense of friction, as the music yearns to venture in both directions at the same time but is never allowed to truly align itself with either pole. Multiple abrupt shifts in meter exacerbate the music’s jarring effect as the listener is denied the luxury of settling into a reliable pattern.

PhSPHR Entropy will be available to all those brave enough to experience it on December 4th via Sentient Ruin (also, their Bandcamp) (tape, US vinyl), Clavis Secretorum (CD), and Babylon Doom Cult Records (EU vinyl), though vinyl won’t be available until February of next year.

As a December release, it’s likely to be excluded from much of the incoming glut of year-end lists, yet one gets the distinct feeling that DSKNT is not concerned with such trivialities. Two of the album’s other tracks are currently available on Clavis Secretorum’s Bandcamp.

—Ivan Belcic

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