(Andy Synn prepares to worship at the altar of Spirit Possession, whose new album is out on Friday)
Allow me to begin this review with a semi-spoiler, if I may?
Because, if nothing changes between now and December, there’s a very high likelihood that Spirit Possession‘s third album will be taking one of the highly-coveted slots in this year’s “Critical Top Ten”.
But, then, something like that has been on the cards for the Portland-based pairing of Steve Peacock (vocals/guitar) and Ash Spungin (drums) ever since their self-titled 2020 debut, with the subsequent release of 2023’s stunning Of the Sign… only serving to expose even more people to the band’s riveting and instantly recognisable blend of frenzied, finger-picked riffage and equally frenetic, effortlessly fluid, drum work.
And now, with the imminent release of Cathedral Speech, it feels as though the dynamic duo are, finally, right on the verge of being accepted as true masters of the black arts.
While Spirit Possession have always preferred to recreate the raw intensity of their live shows on record, rather than artificially enhance their sound with unnecessary layers of gloss and polish, this hasn’t prevented them from adding some extra depth to their sound along the way (particularly when it comes to their use of ingeniously insidious soundscapes).
And, in this respect, Cathedral Speech is no different… in fact, I’m pretty certain that it’s the band’s most maddeningly complex, creatively chaotic work yet, marrying their blazing, Bathory-meets-Celtic Frost-meets-early Immortal inspired sound to an almost King Crimson-esque sense of sinister psychedelia which should captivate both wide-eyed neophytes and well-worn acolytes in equal numbers.
Sure, the pair have obviously and unashamedly incorporated this sort of thing right from the beginning (with Spungin actually crafting and constructing her own unorthodox noise machines and uniquely analog synth sources for use on each album), but it seems like it’s only now that this aspect of their sound has achieved its full impact and importance (and, as a result, elevated the entire album).
That’s not to say, of course, that Spirit Possession have “gone soft” by any means – the opening title track doesn’t take long to absolutely let rip with some of the spikiest and most spiteful riffs, all thrills and spills, trems and trills, we’ve heard from the band thus far, ably aided and abetted as always by Spungin’s dervish-like, stop-start performance behind the kit – but they’ve definitely made more room, and more time (with the songs in general being that little bit longer and more labyrinthine in structure than usual) for some added passages of warped reflection and unorthodox introspection along the way.
It’s also worth noting that this more psychotropic-tinged approach hasn’t blunted the jagged-edge of the band’s hooks – “Hanged Angels as Patternwalls” might run closer to nine minutes than eight, but it’s still absolutely packed with an array of raggedly infectious riffs that are pretty much guaranteed to scrape and claw their way under your skin and leave you itching for more – or their ability to kick out some of the most venomous (and, ahem, Venom-ous) Black Metal jams you’re likely to hear all year (just try and resist raising your horns in response to the sweat ‘n’ leather swagger of “The Sharpening”, I dare you).
To be totally clear, however, what really positions Cathedral Speech at the apex of the band’s discography – and earns it a place amongst the very top tier of the year’s Black Metal crop – is the undeniable scope and scale of its ambition to be more than just another “old school” throwback, not just remixing and regurgitating its influences but iterating and expanding on them in new and eye-opening ways.
And nowhere is this more apparent than during the closing triptych of “First Levitation”, “Second Liturgy”, and “Trinity Possessor”, which collectively make up the entire second side of the record and serve as perhaps the most dynamic demonstration of the pair’s prodigious talents yet, balancing its furious array of seething, skittering riffs and searing, spiralling leads with a deliriously proggy sense of melody and scintillating, shape-shifting sense of form and structure – anchored, as always, by Spungin’s frenzied-yet-focussed percussive performance – that’s as intricately arranged as it is artfully intense.
Make no mistake, Cathedral Speech represents a new high point of Spirit Possession, and one which will be hard to beat before the end of the year.