L'Acephale - Stahlhartes Gehäuse (2009)

Oregon's L'Acephale is perhaps the most impressive, eclectic black metal artist I've heard since Blood of the Black Owl, Leviathan and Xasthur. The band's use of sampling, ambience and folk puts them in quite a unique position, but all is not experimentation, for the core of the band is slathered in snarling, disgusting black metal which works well in tandem with the more worldly elements. The band is named for the pre-WWII French secret society 'Headless'. Stahlhartes Gehäuse is one of two albums the band has debuted this year, the other being Malefeasance (also worth checking out, and more experimental than this).

This album is somewhat of a journey, being 71 minutes in length with only four tracks. "Stahlhartes Gehäuse" (18:43) itself opens with the sound of train tracks and women singing alongside woodwinds. Then the band builds up some tribal percussion, ambience and chanting before a blast of grim and repressed black metal. Yet, even when the band exposes its true colors, you'll hear samples of chanting, added percussion, etc. Later the track shifts into some blackish doom, and an acoustic folk segment. "Psalm of Misery" (12:05) has sampled dirge-like opera vocals which relapse into a melodic, mid-paced stream of chords that gradually accelerates. Though not as aggressive, I preferred the metal in this track to the previous, it's majestic and catchy, and the strings commit to it a grandeur expression. "Perdition" (24:42) is the album's longest piece, opening with stark, thriving ambience that progresses into smashing black metal, pianos and acoustics, and eventually silence. "The Book of Lies/Seventh Gate" (16:21) has an intense, martial appeal created through its sampled choirs and horns and charging pace, it's got some of the more tumultous metal parts on the album and draws to a rousing conclusion. It's also the band's original EP from 2005.

The album is raw but intense, and the tones mesh well with the extensive use of outside elements to flavor the band's concepts. The vocals are painful and straight from the gut, the guitars broil and sear in their own venom, while the drums are crashy and unflinching. Despite the band's talent at black metal sickness, I actually found the metal a mite inferior to their ability to conjure these amazing sample-scapes which cast a shadowed mood over the listener. This is sublime, thinking man's black metal which stands alongside the American elite.

Verdict: Epic Win [9/10]

http://www.myspace.com/lacephale