Taphonomia Aeternitatis has moments of transcendent quality in light of which the intricate web of sounds the band have made its calling card begins making sense or at the very least stands out in greater relief. It is the latter which deserves more involved treatment because Abigor literally bash the listener with the kitchen sink. Within the context of black metal, and even against the wider cultural backdrop from which the band hail, this music is both of the baroque and the avant-garde tradition; layered, ornate, theatrical, cacophonous, even rousing, an abundance of creative channeling always rooting for a melodic out, always challenging, but never peremptorily dismissible.
There is a cthonic aspect to much of what Abigor do. Overtly, these songs are intended to be Satanic hymnals, but digging through the detritus of mythological overlay, the Satanic element itself can be thought of in terms of the world of experience in its many facets ranging from the temperamental to the indifferent. And as without, so within. Man relentlessly anthropomorphizes both spheres, but these are fundamental instincts that he has inherited over the span of deep time since awareness first dawned in the slime. Orthodoxy and social conditioning attempt to relegate them to a barely-lit annex of his waking consciousness; probably for good reason, too, as evident from the spectrum of seemingly inexplicable behavior humanity is prone to exhibit, both individually and as a species in rank concert. It may be tempting to dismiss various spiritual knowledge systems as hogwash, but all they’ve done, historically, past layers of obfuscation – and is it even obfuscation if it might in fact be preparing the groundwork for a more amenable reconciliation between the surface and the subliminal – is to guide the acute practitioner through trials of ritual discipline towards a firmer and safer grasp of these things, to ultimately teach him to live life as a unified whole and not a mess of perpetually warring opposites.
Earth, Sulphur, Steel :: Grace, Vengeance, Indomitability :: Harmony, Dissonance, Stasis. Music imperceptibly, by degrees, imbues the abstract with identity, before finding an analogue in nature itself. A descent in stages, from the highest in conscious expression, through its fracturing into discrete ideals, down to inanimate matter in the end; but not really a terminus, rather the closing of an ever-rejuvenating loop and upwards again. From such triune composites, Taphonomia is made. Perhaps it will be asked if an album as richly textured and ostentatious as this can ever answer to any level of metaphysical enquiry. We tend to associate the latter with a certain austerity and restraint in the arts; but if all art is essentially units of information, then can the degree of artistic – musical – pointillism i.e. the realization of an idea through fine, incremental, and accumulative detail, be reasonably held against it?
And Taphonomia certainly is an album of musical aggregates. Songs are frequently introduced and driven forward by a cluster of five or so notes of the chromatic scale, played in half-step couplets across successive octaves, tentatively probing up and down the register, building energy and direction until a floating or opportune resolution is found in an ascendant semitone or a new chord voicing altogether: a heralding, a liberation and an emergence from the unlight of constituent shapes into a more equitable and irrefutable relationship with the world of thought and matter.
A wide range of vocalized polemic drapes itself all over these songs – somewhat overzealously it must be said, but also on at least one occasion with startling effect. See: ‘Forniotrs Weltenreise‘ – thus actually making songs of them. It is an obvious distinction between the instrumental piece and the song proper, but one that is often overlooked in the Nietzschean quest for absolute purity. The latter, however, is but an ideal and a hypothesis, at least as far as metal goes. Singing, on the other hand, is an elementary human activity, probably the oldest of all artistic pursuits, and therefore has its right of place in any appropriately creative expression. It seems overly analytical, even somewhat self-punishing, to dismiss or downgrade out of hand a piece of music only because it can’t help giving voice to an innate generative impulse.
Whether Taphonomia Aeternitatis is black metal, or even metal, may be a discussion best reserved for another time, if one cares enough about such things. It certainly possesses the drama and spirit of black metal. Technique, maybe not so much, not all of the time anyway, but this might be somewhat moot if, as we maintain in our loftier idealizing, technique lies in the service of the spirit. Within reasonable limits naturally. In any case, a band consciously placing itself this far outside the norm is obviously not trying to adhere to established patterns. There is a place for experimentation, perhaps more so within black metal than any other subgenre. It is up to the listener to decide whether it is worth engaging with.
Old Disgruntled Bastard 