Lurker of Chalice - Lurker of Chalice (2005) Reviews

This is the work of a soul drenched in sorrow.  Finding in the unimaginable weight of the darkness the creative ability to embrace multiple forms, styles and sounds of music to produce a work that is harrowing, avant-garde, expansive and above all else capable.  Wrest is known for his work with his Leviathan project, rightly getting credit for the darkness he creates under that pseudonym for it's bleak ambience and death-hazy resonance.  Lurker of Chalice was arguably the father of Scar Sighted  and you will certainly pick up the vibes from Leviathan's 2015 release here.

I haven't heard many albums that in the midst of such organically generated fear and menace manage to still soothe and calm the soul at the same time.  For all the perilous gloom Wrest creates here he blends perfectly elements of post-everything (I am not kidding) whilst adding doom like atmospherics and songwriting to the album at the same time.  He concocts structures made out of pure desolation, emptying the contents of a damaged and fragile soul into a stark and arid desert of human misery.

In just less than an hour you will find yourself afraid, fearful of what lurks in every shadow of your own mind as this record twists and contorts itself around your very own psyche. Yet you will also find solace here.  It is a dark dressing for the gaping wounds on all our characters, a soundtrack to all of our nightmares that rationalises and makes tangible their form.  It is the nefarious voice in all of us that fears our ability to be anything other than pale shadows on this mortal coil. 

Leviathan is one of the forerunners of the more emotional brand of black metal.  He has an almost unmatched ability to create sonic textures that leave you haunted, angry or crying.  This is most artistically present in his side project, Lurker of Chalice.  Not sure why he chose a different name, as I imagine that's not great marketing (maybe I'm naive about that), but the album still ended up being a staple in modern day atmo-black metal.  I ignored it for a while because I didn't realize it was a Leviathan project until only a few months ago.  Kickstarting my new List Challenge on Metal Academy, I figured this diversified work would be a good starting point, and it really was.  Songs are drenched in atmosphere, flawless and even elegantly disturbing soundscapes that are more shift in atmospheres than compositional melodies.  This is one of those albums that shouldn't, and I mean SHOULD NOT, build itself on melody, and I'm addicted to melody.  There are moments that are doomy and sorrowful, noisy and disturbing, beautiful and slightly melodic, all organized to put you through an alternate would where pain lies on every road and you're smackdab in the intersection, where the forks in the road stab you and feed you to the wolves.  There are a million different ways for the album to do this, and on most occasions it justifies absurd lengths, such as the ten minute This Blood Falls as Mortal Pt. 3.  Ironically, I found the first song, Piercing Where They Might, to be a bit too repetitive, even at six minutes.  The rest of the album is largely perfect.  I had a feeling this would end up being my pick for the best Leviathan release, and I was right.

98

Underground record worth looking for

This is an amazing black metal album. It takes you to a place. That place is somewhere I don't understand, definitely a dark vibe throughout the album. This is an album is not on Spotify where I get most of my music from however i found it on youtube and listened to it there then had to find a copy I could download. Seriously this is a dark boding album, that doesn't always sound Black metal. There are heavy influences of black, but I also hear alot of doom and folk in this as well. If you're interested in something very atmospheric and takes you to a dark place this will do it. 

I have known of Lurker Of Chalice through Leviathan, or Jef 'Wrest' Whitehead, saw some documentaries on him and the american black metal scene and was hooked. I never listened to this album before but fell in deep within Leviathans work. You can hear the darkness, the depression, the sadness, and everything that he feels within this. I wish I could find lyrics to this because some of his vocals are so quiet i'm honestly not sure if they're lyrics or just groans of pain, but if they are lyrics I want to know what he's saying to get that more connection with this. Very talented.