Esoctrilihum
Eternity of Shaog

It would appear as though the one-man project Esoctrilihum is pretty busy with five albums now. The debut appeared in 2017 and that pace (as well as the dreadful looking cover) has me thinking about the quality control of the one-man black metal guys, there are several horrific examples of guys without ability to take a step back and look at their work, and then discard it if it sucks. There is a reason for the expression to murder your darlings, and it has nothing to do with family or friends being detrimental to quality control. Another thing is the name, why take a pseudonym and then call your one-man band something else? That is just stupid. The guy call himself Asthâghul and is not listed as performing with any other band either, come to think of it just now; perhaps he is so ashamed of his work that he cannot stand for it under his own name.

This is however, better than most one-man black metal crap that I have heard. That doesn’t mean it is brilliant though. The music is black metal with some atmosphere and avant-garde touches. We hear synths, piano, kantele and things like that which add some great atmospheres here and there on the album, perhaps giving depth to the conceptual direction. But who can listen to the concept when the vocals are fantastically boring? Not me. And the playing time is longer than it takes to write the text for the review, in two languages – that is not a good thing even though it is more varied than much of the genre friends. I would say that the production is fairly good though, better than much in the same genre.

The vocals may be the poorest thing about this album, that along with the too long playing time could probably have been helped by allowing more than one pair of ears give it a go. Twenty or twenty-five minutes could be probably be cut away quite easily and that could probably be something that gives the album more dynamic and it could even make the vocals bearable. Still, I cannot really shake the feeling that it is a fairly tired album, perhaps even uninspired, not even when I write this with the big headphones on listening to this album can I really hear what I am listening to, the focus is drawn elsewhere all the time. It is lunch time. What to eat? And I don’t really like eating, but I like it more than this album.

If you like the slowish and atmospheric black metal, this might be interesting for you. The same goes if you enjoy what the band has done before, but somehow I doubt that these guys will make anyone else bother with what they have to offer. Perhaps it would have been better if more people were involved in the creative process, because while it may be better than the rest of the one-man crap out there – still more critical eyes wouldn’t be wrong.

HHHHHHH