Legions of Black Metal, come forth! The month of May brings an early snowfall of despair, a familiarly terrorizing chill down your spine. Ready your torches and prepare your fight against falsified order! Gaahl is back with an explosive new album with the new project Gaahl’s Wyrd! Churches, beware!
Gaahl is notoriously known for being the former frontman for Gorgororth during the band’s most notorious stage until 2007. This alongside the project Trelldom, eccentric interviews, and felony charges, have all collectively made him the infamous individual he is in the metal community worldwide. The new project is a reflection of the entire cumulation of Gaahl’s work in the field if extreme, cutthroat and unsettling music.
‘GastiR – Ghosts Invited’ is the debut album of the project made with fellow black metal musicians Lust Kilman, Eld, and Spektre. The 8 track album is an eerie spectacle of atmospheric Black metal, mashed with a good dose of fast, gut-rattling brute force. Gaahl himself has added to the atmosphere by introducing new vocal styles into the record; putting in a touch of freshness in a genre that’s rather known to shriek out about the monotonous vortex of impending death and despair that’s known as life.
“Carving the Voices” is slow but gradually into sucking the listener into that vortex. The build-up is gradual yet steady and captures into an anxious and dreading trance. Don’t fall in too hard either, for tracks like “The Speech and the Self” and “Through and Past and Past” are quick to pull you out and punch you in the gut once or twice while you’re at it. The raw tempo and clutching rhythm of the songs are pretty tight headbangin’ tunes, and can easily serve as background music for a good old Church BBQ. Other tracks like “From the Spear” and the title track are also likely to become new fan favorites.
The majority of the album, however, is excellent at delivering the angsty atmosphere just right, and just perfect. Black Metal is known to represent anything that’s remotely uncomfortable and speak of tales unbearable to the common ear. This record does that exactly to the textbook while also adding in a new vocal style which is still as eerie and horrifying as ever.
GastiR – Ghosts Invited is, holistically speaking, a well written and definitely bound-to-be well-appreciated album in the extreme music scene. For a person who himself likes his coffee and music black (added dread points when mixed together), I definitely see this album being a part of my usual tunes. The debut album is also very capable of pulling in a crowd demand for future albums, very very soon. GastiR – Ghosts Invited out via Season of Mist, May 31st!