Throne of Katarsis – The Three Transcendental Keys
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It’s been a great year for black metal already, given the fantastic releases from Fyrnask and The Ruins of Beverast among others. It’s gotten even better as of October 21st, when Norway’s Throne of Katarsis unearthed their latest opus, The Three Transcendental Keys. Funny thing is, though, the label, Candlelight, is acting as if it doesn’t exist.
There’s a link to preview the songs on Amazon (with all of the good that does you for these kind of long-form songs). Only last Friday (the 25th) did a third party finally upload a song to Youtube. (It’s streaming below.) It’s waaay down below the fold on the Candlelight website, and, they’ve changed the release date several times, in an apparent effort to create anticipation and/or confusion. It’s as if they don’t know how good the album is or think that no one will notice. Either way, they’re neglecting it. But you shouldn’t.
While Fyrnask’s Eldir Nott evoked cold raw nature, and Ruins of Beverast evoked a masterful interrogator for the Inquisition, Throne of Katarsis evokes pure blasphemy. This album, their fourth, was recorded live in the studio to cassette, and it sounds raw and totally unpolished. With only 3 tracks, it’s got a run-time of more than 45 minutes. Each track is a “Key”: “The First Transcendental Key Of Rituals (And Astral Spells)”, “The Second Transcendental Key Beyond The Specters”, and “The Third Transcendental Key In Timeless Aspects”. Philosophically speaking, these tracks seem to be about laws, eternities and the nothingness that exists beyond the fleshly world. Master these three keys and you’ve figured out everything that matters (pun unintended but fitting).
Musically, each Key is progressively longer, and each song builds upon the next, becoming increasingly unsettling. While the band knowingly pulls from the Norwegian tradition, they do things a bit differently. The bass is clearly audible, giving the recording a doomy quality, which along with the distorted old-school guitar, creates a vocabulary both historic and modern. Vocally, there’s high-pitch screaming à la Xasthur, deep-throated gravelly vocalizations à la Attila, and just about everything in between.
The first Key starts out eerie, then quickly becomes an occult black metal assault. The second Key begins slowly, taking a good two minutes before vocals begin. The peaks and valleys explored in the first Key are revisited and plumbed further. The third Key, at more than 20 minutes, is a culmination of everything the first two tracks set up. Throne of Katarsis could have taken each of these songs and chopped them up for brooding atmosphere, riffage and rhythm, but the fact that they were able to seamlessly meld everything into three great songs makes this a likely candidate for end-of-the-year lists. If only Candlelight seemed to care.
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