“Hic Est Domus Diaboli” – This is the
devil’s house and Cult of Occult cordially invite you to enter.
It is the first full length album of the
French four piece Sludge/Doom band from Lyon, released in June 2013 through
TotalRust Music and it is following up their first release, a self titled EP (2011).
The opener “In Vino Veritas” is the door
to the house. It opens reluctantly with heavy distortion and creaking feedback
sounds. You go through that door and you instantly know it leads inside
yourself, inside your own drunken mind, where slow heavy riffs and bold
messages in short sentences introduce you to your very own devil who infects
you with his hatred.
Images and sounds of occultish doomy
atmosphere, ritualistic rhythms, slow heavy abrasive sludge, waves of
distortion and screaming vocals with the energy of a hot blazing firestorm
accompany you throughout the six songs and the 70 minutes of this album.
With the exception of “DCLXVI” all songs
exceed the 10 minute mark. They take their time to expand. The tempo is
agonizingly slow, the riffs are thick and heavy, huge and monolithic.
Repetitive hypnotic rhythms, mantra like spoken words, all enhance the
sinister evil ritualistic entrancing atmosphere that kind of naturally and
inevitably leads to the celebration of “Magna Eripe” in a
black mass. Despite their length and monolithic character the songs keep their
tension and energy by well set variations, incredible guitar parts and these
aforementioned hot blazing firestorm like screams. They hook you, from the
beginning and don’t let you go until the end.
“DCLXVI” - 666 though, is a kind of
interlude, a short (2:53 min.) break in the depressing slowness, an
instrumental almost fast, but still heavy and evil. Satan’s jeering rock’n’roll
to make you savor the crushing brutality of the following “Requiem” all the
more.
“Hic Est Domus Diaboli” already belongs
into the list of my favorite releases of 2013.
words by Ulla Roschat
.
