I’m not even going to stress or elaborate too much on who Brian “LUSTMORD” Williams is and what his weight in contemporary experimental music is. The dude is simply a titan of our times when it comes to sound architecture. He’s been around for friggin’ thirty years, has (re)defined the dark ambient genre, has worked with people like ISIS, The Melvins, Throbbing Gristle, and even TOOL; worked in the film, video game and advertising industry and has amassed and enormous discography steeped with masterpieces of dark, surreal and frightening sonic matter. Today it is with extreme joy that we dive into The Word As Power, LUSTMORD’s brand new and long awaited opus of original material, the first since the magnificent [ O T H E R ] was released back in 2008 on Aaron Turner’s HydraHead Records. For the first time in years, The Word As Power lets light into the world of LUSTMORD’s twisted, frightening and grotesque musical dogma. And the light he lets in is that of absolute and titanic sonic magnificence.
Ethereal and stormy female chants – for the most part courtesy of the equally legendary Jarboe and of Aina Skinnes Olsen – almost entirely permeate the work giving the album an extremely epic, almost legendary feel. The female vocals have almost completely replaced the demonic groans and howls heard throughout on [ O T H E R ], and while the whole album continues down the path of absolute frightening soundscaping, creating a surreal world of doom and gloom, this new work seems more like a battle between good and evil and an absolute triumph of evil, like most of his recent years’ output. The Word As Power has almost a liturgic and regal feel to it, almost feeling like Dead Can Dance on an overdose of Hayuasca, downers and occultism. It seems ceremonial in its solemn and absolutely titanic presence and its evocative power is immense. Slipping your head into good headphones and pressing play means surrendering. Giving up your humanity. Being stripped of everything and surrendering your tiny existence of mortal human being to a parallel world of an unmatched evocative and hallucinating presence. You can almost envision magical and gigantic ceremonies being held by ancient civilizations while listening to this work. Or distant and unknown alien civilizations and worlds materialize in the surreal vortex of emotions this album thrusts into your brain behind your closed eyelids. While absolutely permeated by darkness and bleakness, this music has plenty of colour in it. It feels less evil than LUSTMORD’s past work but equally fucking haunting and frightening. If [ O T H E R ] was the reaping, The Word As Power is the funeral – the liturgic statement of the death and end of all things transformed in sound. An absolute highlight of the work is “Abbaddon,” one of the creepiest and most surreal moments of the album that also boasts the priceless presence of guest vocals by none other than TOOL’s Maynard James Keenan himself. Brian “LUSTMORD” Williams is a master in the art of world-creation through the medium of sound, and The Word As Power is his latest unquestionable statement in this man’s rule and status of legend in the realm of ambient and dark-atmospheric music.
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