Cross-hemispherical occult transmissions to feed the calling throat of the utter dark with nourishing praise of death, the devourer, and the abyssal source. — Uppsala, Sweden/Santiago, Chile-based arcane mystic black metal trio Xalpen rend magick as emergent spiritual notion before practicum in conjuration of their second full-length album, interrupting the balance of the ritualistic heart with the transcendental mind. ‘The Curse of Kwányep‘ calls to unnamed spirits with visions illustrated in smoke-tarnished vellum and smears of blood to stoke an unquenchable yearning for the blackest fires of chaos, an unsettling ~hourlong event which mystifies the mind rather than righting it unto realization. An ancient, possessed intelligence by the hand of daimonian forces brews heartily within this second full-length which persists more intentionally ordered in presentation than before yet still set afire in motion as this merger of uncanny minds crosses feral occult-devotional melee with sleekest, shadowed forms. The arcing thought is borderless, myriad in its strangely inconsistent attack yet the result is irrefutably black metal.

Xalpen arrived circa 2014 between bassist/songwriter Alvaro Lilo (Undercroft, Watain) and J.P. Núñez who’d conceptualized an ‘old school’ black metal sound they’d eventually dub “shamanic” for its lyrical themes and chaotic effect wherein the noisome, punkish side of raw black metal loosely squared up with moderately sophisticated melodic ideas. The core concept of the band and their distinct sound hadn’t fully come together on their first EP (‘Black Rites‘, 2016) but it was readable enough as a bestial current with a semi-melodic approach to the rhythm guitar work that’d been roughly hewn but eyeballing the ratio well enough. It wasn’t until the duo’s second EP (‘Wowk Otrr‘, 2018) picked up an additional guitarist, a different drummer and melded the raw mixture of their sound and streamlined it that we’d gotten a clearer notion of what Xalpen were all about. These were steps along the way, small windows into a style influenced by Swedish black metal and years of tooling around with a feral touch applied to the raw tradition of the craft. The realization of this initial idea came with the addition of Joseph Merino from Škáŋ and the debut full-length (‘Sawken Xo’on‘, 2020) which released beyond that point. Though the exaggerated atmospheric force that’d defined their efforts ’til then was in full swing for that record to the point of sounding as if it were recorded on a mountain pass, it never felt quite as polished and organized as it’d intended to be.

‘The Curse of Kwányep‘ doesn’t iterate upon that previously established sound with any particular sentiment but instead rethinks and re-tools Xalpen‘s approach to a more streamlined yet still intuitively thrashing mode without losing its dark purpose. The band has reigned in their lineup to the founding members wherein Lilo acts as the main songwriter and the core duo adds drummer Claudio Muñoz (Exanimatvm, Meconio) to the fold. It might seem odd to suggest that such a raw, unhinged type of black metal band would sound more professional on their second release but no doubt this record is more readable and somewhat less piecemeal than its predecessor with an appropriately organic render. The drums are set aback about fifteen feet the guitars panned slightly wide and this pushes the register of the bass and vocals as the eruption in the middle of the mix which reads to me as ’92-’93 black/death feeling minus the compression one would expect from modest drum recordings back then. Even at their most chaotic, such as feverish introduction to “Kòlpèwsh”, the full band never lose the definition of their space within the mix and this is a testament to the sound design that it can so capably handle the crazed ambitions of these types of songs without leaving them feeling contained.

Xalpen offer three main modes on this record: The first is intermittent dark ritual ambiance which often turns to chanting and/or seemingly improvised mantra to convey a concept of possession and dark devotion, the intro and outro to the album are more directly instrumental to some degree. Second, the 4-5 minute thrashing black metal songs which tend to center around the modulation of a single riff or memorable groove, such as “Chenke”, and “Daughters of the Nightside” and these manifest as the major ‘old school’ black metal impact of the record which have an effective heavy metal feeling to their rhythms. These pieces aren’t exactly The Black (Sweden) in terms the violent terror but reach for hints of speed metal and early black/death metal just short of something ‘bestial’. Third, the longer ~7-9 minute pieces which take on a more melodic Swedish black metal influenced feeling make up the greater bulk of the listening experience between the title track (“The Curse of Kwányep”) and “Kash Wayèwèn Qèr”. The best songs on the album have a bit of both of these traits in their construction, such as the tentative slow-blasted attack of “The Beast From the East” which feels as if it were born in the age of early Beherit, and pieces which take the semi-melodic second wave hit of lead guitar interest up front (see: “Moon Goddess”) but keep the thrust of the song barbaric. At the very least these pieces of Xalpen‘s sound all feel created from the same mindset this time around though I didn’t feel it always worked in sequence.

In fact I don’t know that their combination of primordial black metal movement and more “modern” melodic ambitions has yet yielded transformative results, only that their juxtaposition makes for an interesting enough listening experience which appears broad in reach and certainly inspired within every moment of Xalpen‘s action. That is the major boast of ‘The Curse of Kwányep‘ as a listening experience, that it goes places which still feel unexpected, or, chaotic in their focus to the point that it feels more an intentional rift of ideals rather than a practical limitation of concept and/or execution. Any modulation to this modus of intuitive decision making would likely end up feeling all the more normative and less personal so I did ultimately find something unique as I fished around in the guts of this record even if it wasn’t at all immediately sensical or memorable. For the average black metal listener I figure it will read similarly as a ragged puzzling of forms but may ultimately endear for the lengths it goes to illustrate the occult-spiritual derangement on offer. A moderately high recommendation.

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