tr00 Blackened Basement Psych

BENIGHTED LEAMS - Astral Tenebrion (1997)

There's a reason why musty old clichés become musty old clichés-- there's a kernel of truth in 'em. Take for example, this one: "One man's loss is another man's gain." And how does that apply to thee Platter du Jour thou ask? Well... Alex Kurtagic aka Benighted Leams (although someone named Wulfhild apparently sits in occasionally on bass) sat down in his bedroom, garage or basement with thee full intention of kicking up some good 'ol fashioned blasphemy to make Beelzebub proud. Problem was, he had absolutely no idea whatsoever how to program a drum machine-- thus, there's nothing remotely resembling a digestible beat throughout this entire album. The wildly askew synth-thud, perhaps the most blatantly mechanical-sounding "percussion" I've ever heard committed to tape, kinda provides a bit o' random punctuation here 'n' there... on different songs for a different record unfortunately, though.

He also musta lost his Satanic Bible cuz the lyrics seem to have been written with the help of some half-understood astronomy texts. So, instead of the typical "I'm Gonna Recrucify Jesus" or "Skullfucking in Lucifer's Name" stuff black metal connoisseurs have come to know & love, ya get far more ungainly titles like "Hermetically Leering as Frigid Blores Obumber" and "Succeeding Departure From the Chryse Planitia." Hardly the kinda subject matter Gorgoroth would approve of. Mebbe because of his self-confessed upbringing of "dismal squalor and desolation" in South London, he was looking to the spaceways to metaphysically escape from his earthly prison (yes, I'm completely fulla shit, I know-- I stole that from George Clinton). Whatever the case, his fretwork is more than competent; much more. The multi-tracked riffage is filled with aspirations of Wagnerian grandeur; sounding at times like Hawkwind taking a stab at "Ride of the Valkyries."

Awright, awright. What I'm trying to say is that despite his failure to make an opus that has anything in common with black metal (or metal of any kind for that matter), we get ourselves a fine slice of outsider psychedelia that rivals Skip Spence's "Oar" or the Red Krayola's "Parable" in that fine little corner of the aural Twilight Zone. Sorry Mr. Kurtagic: your loss is our gain (well, mine at least, anyway).

Beam yourself to the comments.