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THE GREAT OLD ONES
Tekeli-Li

Les Acteurs de l’Ombre Productions (2014)
Rating: 6.5/10

The Great Old Ones are not ashamed – and neither should be – to be another band influenced by the peculiar works of author H.P. Lovecraft. This French quintet have revelled, waded and drowned in Lovecraftian nightmares since the spawning of 2012 debut platter Al Azif, and with the six-track Tekeli-Li they have continued their esoteric cacophony.

Rather than just plod through six tracks of straightforward Lovecraftian tributes, this rather mesmerising combo choose to create varying levels of eeriness, which for the most part of their journey take on the form of dissonant black metal chimes revolving around sparse, sprawling guitars and wretched vocal yelps and barks.

However, while one moment the band are rattling through fierce tundra in search of obscure emotion, there are also those injections of the sweepings serene on wintry oddness which – once all compacted together – make for quite an intriguing listen.

That’s not to say that The Great Old Ones – despite their seemingly wide heads – are spectacularly original. Their soundscapes – which range from the opening brief passage ‘Je ne suis pas fou’ to the bulbous monstrosity that is ‘Behind The Mountains’ – are a mesh of harsh, scraping guitars, tumbling stark drums and whining, cavernous noises which match the snapping vocals, but it’s similar in slant to the more depressive moods of Xasthur.

A track such as ‘The Ascend’ opts for a more abrasive approach, and remains nothing new within the black metal field. It hurtles at quite a pace, yet offers a distant melody throughout its ferocity. ‘The Ascend’ exists as one of the fleshiest tracks on the album, particularly with its iron-clad drumming; in rapid-fire motions, the drumming rattles through the track until we reach the slower, droning mid-section bubble before once again we’re back to the pace. Unfortunately, the track is bereft of vocal and doesn’t benefit from this.

All can be forgiven when we reach the final epic rapture that is the near 18-minute ‘Behind The Mountains’, however, which begins with haunting tip-toe piano and then in full-blown bleak quality starts to rage like a coming storm. The track, for all of its girth, somehow becomes poetic, haunting and also spiteful as it attempts to evoke images of the same bewildering tundra that Lovecraft manifested all those years ago.

I will admit that I expected this opus to harbour more of the mystical, but it’s still a chilly black metal composition that tries its best to conjure up nightmarish images by way of tinkering with the usual formulas we’ve become accustomed to within the genre. Somewhere between haunting soundtrack and grainy white noise, Tekeli-Li should greet you with a frosty reception.

Neil Arnold

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