Tuesday Tunes--My Top 25 Bands: 23. Deathspell Omega
SCORES (Out of 25)
-Overall Positive Output: 3
-Overall Enjoyment: 3
-Good v. Bad Output: 8
-Popular Appeal: 1
-Best Album: 13
-Mixtape Factor: 3
TOTAL: 31
If you thought Funeral Diner wasn't for everyone, wait til you get a load of this band. Deathspell Omega is a very deeply spiritual French black metal band (although even calling them black metal doesn't even begin to do them justice). I heard about them at a time when I was listening to a lot of black metal (not the lame ass Cradle of Filth type stuff but real, raw, lo-fi, harsh, abrasive black metal deeply rooted in true Satanism which is more like a spiritual hatred of mankind) and my good friend Rudo introduced me to them and, at the time, made me promise not to show them to anyone because very few people will "get" this kind of music and don't really deserve to hear it if they won't fully appreciate it. We were young back then. I'm sure he wouldn't care about me sharing them now (also because they've gotten substantially more popular since then). If he does, tough. :)
As you can see, they come in just above Funeral Diner in Overall Positive Output and Overall Enjoyment. The OPO number is low for the same reason as Funeral Diner but the OE number has more to do with the fact that this isn't something you listen to just any old time. I have to really be in a specific mood to want to delve into a DsO album (of which I own two on 180 gram vinyl). And you kind of have to listen to them that way--which is why the Mixtape Factor score is so low; this is not a band you listen to a mixtape of. They take what they do very seriously and so do their fans. They don't even play live because they don't consider what they do to be "entertainment."
They get a pretty decent score for Good v. Bad Output because frankly they've never released an album that wasn't at least very good, if not transcendent. Their first two albums ("Inquisitors of Satan" and "Infernal Battles") are more typical black metal and they're still very good but after those two albums they became a different band and put out several transcendent records and a few other epic pieces for compilations and splits (we're talking like 20 minute pieces of music here, not just tracks on a compilation or split).
These transcendent records are actually part of a trilogy representing God, the Devil, and Man, which is comprised of "Si Monvmentvm Reqvires, Circvmspice" (Latin for "If you seek his monument, look around you"), "Fas -- Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum" ("Divine Law -- Go, Accursed, Into Everlasting Fire"), and "Paracletus" (Latinised form of a Greek word that means "comforter"; also another word for "Holy Spirit"). There is also another record that serves as a sort of "appendix" to the first record, entitled "Kénôse" (French for "Kenosis", a theological term).
I wouldn't really feel right about posting a link to a single song from any of these amazing musical experiences but I know I still have to give you something, so I present you with a compromise: a song that appeared originally on "Infernal Battles" but was re-recorded (much, MUCH better) for "Si Monvmentvm Reqvires, Circvmspice" entitled "Drink the Devil's Blood." Enjoy!
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