LEVIATHAN "White Devil, Black Metal" CDR

So let me open this with something that may or may not taint your interest in this review: there is no bad Leviathan recording. Wrest has set the bar so high for all of black metal and has released nothing but an enormously consistent body of work that can only be categorized as genius. So there's no objectivity here, just massive gushing over the work of one of my favorite musical auteurs. This is one of the 12 demos that preceded the release of the massive 2CD "Verrater", which i view as black metal's greatest record, just behind Burzum's "Filosofem." I have to give thanks to Ben for nabbing this fucker for me from one of those torrent sites-crazy that this was floating around out there, but i'm glad it was. I would kill for any one of these demos and this one easily ranks as one of the best. Two or three of these tracks have surfaced, via "Verrater" and "Howl Mockery at the Cross" but for the most part, listening to this today was like hearing a brand new record. And it's amazing. This is probably the most "mellow" Leviathan work to date but it's by no means restarined or subdued, just more gorgeously shoegazey and melodic. Three of the tracks even feature extended acoustic sections that are damaged and fractured and just beautiful, weepy style beautiful-who knew where Wrest was at this point of recording, cuz acoustic guitars on Leviathan shit is a rare treat indeed. The other departure is in the form of a nine minute bass rumble providing framework for a constantly swelling cloud of minor key delyaed out guitar chords, thock with fuzzy distortion and heavy with mournful melody. It's amazing stuff, i was really floored by it-i almost wish i would get more of this stuff from Wrest cuz it's definetely carving out space in the shoegaze/BM hybrid worlds that are popping up now (but hell, seems Wrest was there first on this record, about 5 years ago!) And then there's the black metal-grim, true, buzzing, hateful, painfully and hyper distorted (the vocals are so processed it's almost painful for the ears, the distortion is so grating!). Every riff throned in magnificent majestic splendour, psychedelic guitars floating all around and of course the thin and disorienting sound of the famous V-Drums that Wrest has used on every record (except for the split with Sapthuran, where a real kit was recorded.) So yeah, this record is pretty much essential for anyone looking to keep up with where black metal has to go. It's a fucking crime that this stuff was never released properly-Wrest should authorize some labels to get this stuff out there-there are some Southern Lord reissues that i could actually get behind. Find it if you can, it's obviously out there, and get ready to be thrown into a seriously dark, hateful and fucked up world of blackened metal spacetime. Superb beyond any real review's ability to convey.