There’s something about atmospheric death metal that just gets me. Something about the deep urgency of the guitar tones, the echoing, sinister riffing, the cavernous vocals, the restless dance of the drums, and the metallic chime of the cymbals. It elevates an already hostile and confrontational musical style to a kind of arresting profundity, when done well. Seeing Ulcerate, Gorguts, and Devenial Verdict—among others—name-dropped in the promo material for Ensemble Under the Dark Sun had me yanking it out of the bin faster than you can say “disso-death.” This was no clickbait. Turkey’s Serpent of Old play the kind of dark, ferocious haunting blackened death emblematic of these bands, and their shared conceptual genre, at their most intense. Just like that alluring, slightly mesmerizing art, Ensemble…winds its way around you and doesn’t let go. And from the moment I first pressed play, I just knew.
What did I know? That this is no mere Ulcerate copycat; no forgettable audial assault; no posturing worship of darkness. This is everything about atmospheric extreme metal that works and exactly nothing that doesn’t. The fact that it’s a debut is frankly stunning. Ensemble is oppressively heavy, its dire riffery throat-grippingly immediate, its writhing percussive backbone hypnotically compelling. Flirting with doom (“The Fall,” “Idiosyncrasy”) to create menace that creeps in slowly, but largely dwelling in the reverberating space of harsh, resonant tremolos and tumbling rhythms that rings with malevolence and dreadful beauty. “The Sin Before the Great Sin” is the perfect introduction to this fearful space with its intensifying descending scale melody and subsequent nightmarish shrieks that precipitate its turn to blackened turmoil. “Virtue of the Devil in His Loins” a perfect example of how music in this sphere can be frightening even at its least heavy, with the eerie touch of synth and chanting cleans. “Unsaturated Hunger and Esoteric Lust” and “The Fall”-and indeed, every song here—perfectly embody, in their twisting progressions of melancholic refrains and undulating tempos, the progressive death metal chimaera of long songs that are completely captivating in spite of their magnitude.
By delving into lengthier compositions, Serpent of Old threaten to intimidate, but in actuality capitalize on their scope. They similarly make excellent use of the paradoxical nature of dissonance in this musical genre. Nothing about Ensemble… is pretty, uplifting, or mellifluous, but its winding, crashing soundscapes are beautiful, stirring, and, yes, harmonic. Such is the nature of so-stamped dissonant and atmospheric death metal, when it’s good. Mournful, menacing refrains develop delicately over undulating bass and drums (“Unsaturated Hunger…” “The Fall,” “Idiosyncrasy”), or snake upwards in melodramatic solos (“Unsaturated…,” “From the Impending Dusk”), and soak into washes of ebbing riffs. They’re gorgeous. But what makes or breaks great atmo-disso-death—in my estimation—are the drums, and the drumming on Ensemble… is phenomenal, (not to undersell the brilliant work being done on strings and vocals). Karem Kaan takes a tempo and twists it into shuddering spasms at one end (“The Sin…,” “From…,” “Idiosyncrasy”), irresistible groove at the other (“Unsaturated…,” “The Fall”). Fills and rollovers create spiraling vortexes for sinister and wailing guitars to fall into, and scattered cymbal tapping sends chills at all the right moments. This percussion plays no small part in the musical evolution, and its restless throes contrast ideally the cavernous severity of the bellowing growls.
As one might expect, Ensemble… is densely produced. It’s loud. It’s huge. But this just makes it better at doing what it was clearly designed to do: overcome its listener. And despite its low dynamic range, the razor-wire riffing and whispering cymbal brushes strike clear and sharp. Its breathless atmosphere is enticingly warm. Deliciously dark when shrouding in miasmic layered riffing and howls (“Unsaturated…” “The Fall,” “Idiosyncrasy”), shiver-inducingly anticipatory when opening to stripped-back plucks and taps (“The Sin…,” “Unsaturated…”). It’s hard to notice that songs stretch towards ten minutes, when those same songs are wrapping their way around your mind like a giant, antediluvian serpent.
In short, everything about this album works towards making it the behemoth it is. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve re-listened just to experience it again. Serpent of Old have crafted one of the best metal records of 2023 so far, no exaggeration.1 If this is what they can do on album number one, the metal underground will be experiencing some shockwaves in years to come.
Rating: Excellent
DR: 4 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Transcending Obscurity Records
Websites: serpentofold.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/serpentofoldtr
Releases Worldwide: June 30th, 2023
