Search - Deathspell Omega :: Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice

While of thy soul remains but ashes cold...

Taylor Carr | www.guitar6.com | 08/28/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In a genre torn between elitists and innovators that so often alienate each other, "Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice" is an immense breath of fresh air that unites the two. This is underground and minimalist enough to appease the traditional fans, yet it's also creative and unique enough to make you re-think what potential black metal really can have. Deathspell Omega carries a message of theistic Satanism that is marvelously translated into their music as well as their lyrics. Their subject matter is among the most intelligent in black metal, writing in a philosophical manner that uses, twists and perverts Christianity in a brilliantly ironic way. Their music is also very fitting and complementary to their message, sounding as if it is being played "through" them as vessels for an unseen force. You have never heard anything like this before, I am quite certain.



This album is truly a strange birthing for Deathspell Omega, because if you have heard their previous 2002 release, there was nothing too special about it that might remotely indicate that this monstrosity would soon follow. "Si Monumentum" employs dissonance in ways that are utterly dark and still so beautiful and mysterious. There is a great degree of variety as well, balancing out between blasting ferocious mayhem and slower-paced mesmerizing riffs that give tremendous depth to this material. Perhaps the highlight of this album is "Carnal Malefactor", the 11-minute epic that builds up in sickening, tormented style, briefly releases the tension for a few minutes of eerie chanting and then resumes it's decimating form once more.



In brutal truth, any description of this album will fall quite short of the actual impact gained from listening to it yourself. I feel it is also best absorbed as a whole, and not as individual tracks, so I recommend giving yourself ample time to experience "Si Monumentum" without interruption. If you have any appreciation for dark extreme metal, it will be well worth it."

Bursting At the Seams in Dark Beauty

A Critical Reader | 03/03/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is the first piece of Deathspell Omega work I bought. I was blown away at the deepness, darkness and glory of this album. This album was just so remarkable and revolutionary. I think this album is the next step for black metal itself. This album proves the scene is healthy and still has amazing bands to offer.



The music is played very well. All instruments involved with this album are played well and produce an intelligent and dark atmosphere. This album has 13 tracks and the performance on all of them is spellbinding. These are some real talented musicians here. The bass, guitar and vocal work are all amazing. I love the ending to the song Hetoimasia, when their vocalist growls out the word CLAWS! Anyway, the music in itself is excellent and will satisfy your need of pure awesomeness.



The lyrics on this album are also quite good. Their written with cleverness and intelligence. You have to read over the lyrics over many times before you really get what they mean but I love thoughtful lyrics such as these. Writing this good is hard to come by.



The album artwork is a bit of an enigma. To figure it out, you will need to do some research and really think on it to get it. This kind of artwork is quite engaging and really adds to the overall dark beauty of this album. I have drawn some conclusions and made some guesses myself but I won't spoil your interpretations by telling you mine.



Deathspell Omega pushes the black metal genre to a whole new level. I think this is a modern classic. This album is a must-have for any black metal fan. This is a band you need to hear. They are just so overwhelmingly good. Buy this album, now. You won't be disappointed.

"

Perhaps the most consequential black metal album of the deca

R. P. Tristram Coffin, IV | the River City | 10/03/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"As the standard goes, it's difficult to imagine "Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice", becoming anything less than representative of the best of 3rd Wave black metal. With the lack of new ideas that emerged from established 90's acts after the turn of the millennium musicologists will point to Deathspell Omega as a primary reason black metal continued to evolve instead of losing its relevance or becoming fodder for nostalgic retro visitations.



What Deathspell Omega does cannot be put in a box, however an approximation follows. DsO takes the sloppy & lo-fi ideal of black metal (especially early Darkthrone & Mayhem) and tightens the playing but not the production. Then DsO layers this with avant-garde curiosities currently within the style, less profoundly but until this record, most successfully represented on Blut Aus Nord's work through "The Work Which Transforms God". However, while BAN prefer to create cyclical atmospheric prisons DsO delivers dissonance with the frenetic playing of unconventional signatures & arrangements. Further, DsO underscore the brutality bookending this created discord with ambient sections or chant. The band developed this technique more on follow-up EP "Kenose", but especially on "Fas - Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeturnum". Often and repeatedly, the violence overtakes the atmosphere without warning so that over the course of the album the listener leaves feeling battered.



This playing of complex rhythms exceedingly fast and Deathspell Omega's effective use of dynamics is not the extent of appeal here. These facets of the bands sound were established at least in primitive form from the beginning. Mikko Aspa's lyrical influences, specifically his interest in post-surrealism and Georges Batailles is a critical element that further seperates DsO from their peers. Bataille's chief fascination was with excess (if you care to you might start with his book, The Accursed Share) and its capacity to redefine economies and to oppose God. He is perhaps one philosophic evolutionary notch above Ayn Rand. When most black metal appeals to the gut, inspiring boy-like nostalgia for wonder of monsters or mythology, either physical or metaphorical (ie. nationalism) or, just as likely, attempts to fortify adolescent arguments of nihilism with tenuous invective and vitriol, DsO stimulate intellectually while delighting or frightening, depending on the listener's temperament, with their subversive purpose and insistence to remain at the very edge of will. On "Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice", Deathspell Omega reinterprets Scripture so as to appeal to the listener's logic while undermining and inverting the Scripture's intent. The artistic compontant of the packaging is a deliberate continuation of the lyrical device. To the point, the booklet includes a particularly incendiary example of vintage French pornography, likely from Batailles time when it would have inspired him to eventually inspire DsO. By including the photo DsO posits the argument quite effectively that this isn't pornography at all, but art that illicits a stark, real emotional response.



Deathspell Omega's critical flaw on a theosophical level is to over-estimate the value of man's logic when applied to the extra-dimensional world beyond us, which of course is where God, Satan and their answers are. If Deathspell Omega's music can't be contained in box, certainly neither can God. DsO have poured over their dissection of the minutiae of God, parading their powers of discernment (as did Batailles), but in leading with their heads instead of their hearts, find nothing but failure, frustration & fear. God has no interest in an unthinking church, but that organ doesn't have the capacity to know God. This struggle is, more than anything, what DsO's music is about. The misery their struggle has created has fueled an undeniable masterwork and vaulted to prominence the most exciting development to emerge from the black metal underground."