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HIC IACET
The Cosmic Trance Into The Void

Iron Bonehead Productions (2015)
Rating: 8.5/10

This is some seriously strange Spanish shit that formed back in 2010 out of Galicia. The Cosmic Trance Into The Void is the band’s debut full-length platter and comes three years after the 2012 Prophecy Of Doom EP.

A quick glance of the packaging and with song titles such as ‘Death In The Abyss Of Meditation’ and ‘Into The Bowels Of The Absolute’, I expected some sort of weird, obscure-sounding cosmic weirdness – thankfully, I was right.

Hic Iacet are the sort of band you want to listen to while reading H.P. Lovecraft, such is their eerie nature. Imagine a world of cold atmospheres, cavernous vocal grimaces, chilly arrogant guitar dissonance and percussion as grey as the otherworldly planet it comes from, and you might have just an inkling as to what this sinister band is all about.

Rather than completely alienate the listener with its galactic menace though, Hic lacet draws them in by way of deep, churning seas of suspense – the guitar sound trudges with ominous stature, evoking images of bubbling, acidic waters on some distant planet. It’s all very much doom-laden and ashen and steeped in lore, which is what I love about this traipsing ogre of a record.

The opening beast of a title track is one of many layers, but first and foremost it features those grisly vocals squelches which sound as if the vocalist is being drowned by way of squirming tentacles of horror which are attempting to drag him down into the murky depths. Behind him we have that gargantuan sound constructed of some truly ghoulish riffs and other structural abominations which – when put together – create some hideous, inhospitable and uninviting landscape that only Lovecraft and other literary madmen could comprehend.

It’s not all doom and gloom, though. ‘Infinite Consciousness’ combines pace with those already familiar yet icy layers of chilled menace, but as each of the six tracks roll on like some soul-gripping fog the sepulchral air becomes thicker and thicker. The metallic waves of ‘Death In The Abyss Of Meditation’ again exist as pacier forms and repugnant manifestations forever swirling, nipping and taunting like frosty demons rising from the distant wastes of an afterlife of nightmares. As the pace slows, we get that worrying grind of cold, withering guitars which just plod and plod to the point where – as a force – they hint at a cosmic mix of black metal (Gorgoroth, Lantern, Beherit) and death metal (Autopsy), only with added arrogance and gargantuan greyness.

‘Mahakala’ exists as an otherworldly miasmic chant, fuelled by continuous rumbling percussion and those hoarse morose bellows, while ‘The Catacombs Of The Mandala’ burrows itself into further realms of obscure knowledge and melancholy. It’s a track that builds slowly with cavernous horror, and yet for a whole ten minutes just drones on like some pea-soup fog choking all in its wake.

With that death and black fusion and overall despairing vibe, The Cosmic Trance Into The Void is an extraordinary planet to explore but one that smothers in its atmosphere. As each cymbal crashes, one can only imagine what other musical horrors lurk within the minds that created such an interstellar nightmare.

Neil Arnold

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