These days, it seems like everyone is making black metal. Whether they’re any good at it or not is a totally different story. Whenever one black metal horde dies, ten more pop up in its place. So how does one find quality stuff these days? Just like you used to in the old days: by reading zines, scoping out record shops, trading, and looking on MySpace. Wait, MySpace? We didn’t have that back in the old days! But believe it or not, the hulking monolith that is MySpace is an excellent way to find new music. That’s exactly how I found Lythos and I don’t regret it one bit. The band’s debut disc, Sadomass: the Forgotten Hymns, is being distributed by Arcturus Dementia Productions but I suspect that as soon as some labels hear the material, they’ll be on another label.
Lythos is currently a one-man US Black Metal (USBM) outfit hellishly held together by Lord Dagon Sadomas. First formed in 2003, the band has undergone a number of line-up changes including Dagon’s leaving the band. Obviously, Dagon came back to the fold and is now the man leading the horde into damnation. Dagon does all the drum programming, vocals, lyrics, guitars and arrangements much like his one-man US Black Metal (herein referred to as USBM) peers. Sonically, the music is raw and a bit rough around the edges but it definitely doesn’t sound like it was recorded on a $5 lo-fi 4-track in a garbage can in a tunnel and can only get better from the sounds of this debut.
The album kicks off with an almost obligatory synth intro that just pulls you in. It reminds me of when symphonic black metal didn’t suck and keyboards were cool to use; the sound is very much old school. I’m rarely a big fan of programmed drums but Dagon did an excellent job with them and they actually sound less programmed than some of his peers. Throughout the whole album, I find it hard to tell the drums are actually programmed and not some insane guy banging the skins.
The guitar tracks on track number three, Damnation in Its Splendor, are very much thrash in nature but they carry the whole song rhythmically. While the guitars only slightly distorted but they’re very clearly well executed, pulling Lythos away from the boring machine-gun-in-a-trash-can sound of other groups. Possibly my favorite track on the whole album is number eight Legions Immortal. It’s got fast and brutal guitars, crushing vocals, blastbeats, and good use of atmospheric keyboards (I can see some guy playing live, absolutely rocking on the keys, kind of like in This is SPINAL TAP). This track also feels the most polished to me, I don’t know why but it just feels like it may have had the most work put into it since it’s no easy task for one guy to play such an insanely fast song then arrange and mix it all. Hearty thumbs up!
Over the course of the ten tracks, Lythos definitely shows its influences but it’s definitely a very strong effort. In a short interview conducted with Lord Dagon Sadomas, he stated his (very) orthodox influences and musical upbringing “Musically, it’s my craving to fuse atmosphere with brutality. I draw influence atmospherically from bands like Rhapsody, Arcturus, Emperor, etc… The brutality comes from my love of Immortal, Behemoth, Mayhem, Dark Funeral etc… I’m big into a lot of death, power and thrash.” Through the album, I can hear all of those influences in the instrumentation and arrangements. Stacked up against heavy hitters like that, this album sounds like it was recorded back in ‘95 and shelved since then until Lythos decided to release it.
Lyrically, the album is all about the haughtiness of oragnized religion and its utter hypocrisy. However, vocally, it’s not shrieking distressed vocals, it’s straight up death metal styled and fits the sound of Lythos to a T. I can’t imagine Dagon sitting there screaming like a little girl when the music is so fast and in your face, it would be very off putting and probably sound utterly horrible. Any death metal influences surely shine on this album. With a bit more experience recording and mastering, the Lythos sound will be in an upper echelon of USBM.
When asked about the next album and its sound, Dagon was very forthcoming “..but the next album will dull deeper into my views on organized religion with such song titles as ‘Obsolete’, ‘Will of Man’, and ‘One to Six’ to give you a rough idea. The next album will be a continuation of its predecessor. There will be two tunings used instead of one. There will be some acoustic guitar thrown into the mix. I think it will overall be a little darker than Sadomass. It will still retain that Lythos sound.” This makes me eagerly await the next album given that Dagon is less about “being all kvlt and grim” but more of “practicing what I preach and staying on the ‘true’ path of black metal”. The band is about blasphemy and being proud of it, not imitation filth and image. I jokingly asked Dagon about his inspiration for his corpsepaint and the band’s image “Honestly, it’s Quan Chi from Mortal Kombat(C). I wear it occasionally for Lythos, but Lythos isn’t about the imagery as much as the music.” he coquettishly replied. I threw the question in at the end of the interview as a joke but I always want to know the story behind the image or the lack thereof in some bands.
Overall, Sadomass: the Forgotten Hymns is brutal old school symphonic black metal straight out of the mid 90s. I think the sound is one that any black or death fan can easily listen to without worrying about lo-fi sound or terrible harmonics. Lyrically, I didn’t expect much other than the orthodox Satanism and Christ hating but that’s part of the fun. Sonically, I was very impressed by this one man horde. Since Dagon also runs ths production company, he has control over every minute aspect of the music and I can hear a young but budding producer coming through on the mixing of the album. I think with some more time in the studio, Lythos will become another one of the heralded USBM bands and possibly the only one from Kansas.
Head over to Lythos @ MySpace and pick up a copy of Sadomass for $4USD and ask for copies of the demos as well!
Infernal hails and gratitude go out to Lord Dagon Sadomas for not only sending me the album but also for giving me a short but fun interview.
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