Death-conscious sentience, impermanence and the exhaustion of all terrain. — The number of energetic waves of lasting influence one can potentially create before they are buried is limited, countable as rings that expand as the sentient mechanism melts in place. Few are conscious of their expanding reach at all and most do nothing to modulate or command these energetic frequencies beyond consumption and piped-away volatile energetic output. These are the most consistent resonances among us, haplessly droning sacs of functional syncytium clutching piles of their own repetitious waste without consequence. In relative solitude the rarest sort of outlier grasps, pries and learns to bend their choice of these rippling spheres at will into bursts of equally volatile breakthrough or personal sojourn but, at the cost of great energy. In this process one recognizes the universal forces of normalization staunching the will of the individual mercilessly in a grinding, downward press against an unnatural, hopelessly mutated species. As Minneapolis, Minnesota-based abstract black metal project Kostnatění completes their second cycle of exploratory energetic exchange the zoomed-out realist view of slowly scorched and scrambling humanity clashes with the needled-at minutiae of its convoluted, surrealistic compositional foray unto an appropriately disturbing yet richly detailed breakthrough. ‘Úpal‘ finds the artist scaling up the impact of their inherently borderless worldview, still creating erratic and nigh nonsensical levels of scrawling notation but now rooting this modus further outside of the mathematically exaggerated black metal paradigm. For some this will result in a work which is even more wretchedly vexing than prior but for most it will constitute a exponential gain in the curious, eclectic and erratic identity of their work.

Kostnatění became accessible to the polis back in 2018 as an addendum, an outlier expanding upon an inspired idea which was well-suited for the thrilling dementia of the Fallen Empire Records roster in its later-stages missionary work. The first strike from was in preview on a compilation and soon after a quite accomplished demo tape (‘Konec je v​š​ude‘, 2018) released with a trio of incredibly detail, dense songs that’d expressed the unusual traits of the artist readily. At that point harried traits, stylistic variation, and surprising moments were expressed clearly within three songs that’d been packed with obsessive detail heavily influenced by dissonant black metal voicing in an attempt to recreate the feeling and effect of the not-so well documented Rhinocervs collective and specifically the self-titled Odz Manouk record that’d given life to it, an intentionally obscure blip on the underground USBM radar in the early 2010’s. At the time that demo was met with some earnest interest largely because those three pieces were detailed, truly effective summary in some sense as neatly pecked out and well-rendered potentiate. This isn’t what’d made the album compelling to the outsider looking in so much as the use of the Czech language with some fluency and the anonymity of the artist, which naturally leaves curious vulture-eyed types such as myself bug-eyed for human traits.

In this peaking era of deepest black metal guitar abstraction and competitive obscuration Kostnatění‘s debut (‘Hr​ů​za zv​í​t​ě​zí‘, 2019) was lucid in voice yet muddied by personal extraction, a wrack of intentionally anxietous release which served two purposes. First it was a clear indication of the abstract voice of the artist reaching its most unintelligible phrasing, tentative shaping from seeming random intent meant to convey obsessive fear of death. Second it’d provided resolve, not only to recognize and process the death obsession but to recognize the ability to wield it as an artistic medium which was malleable, a reflection of the self that was appealing to the right sort of people. When I’d reviewed it in brief my main comment was: “The ride is painful, someone else’s appreciable catharsis, I could feel my blood pressure clipping up towards the end of each listen while my body’s chemistry tried to convince me to stop listening. Ruinous and effective conveyance.” The album ended up on Jacob Buczarski’s Entropic Recordings who’d provided the drum programming for the record and the mix/master, the latter of which he’d provide for ‘Úpal‘ as well. Despite how different this second LP fundamentally is as a far more original development the continuity of the artist’s habits, guitar tics and compositional maximalism flow through; That same year D.L. provided some vocals for an album I’d celebrated quite a bit in Serpent Column‘s ‘Mirror in Darkness‘ and this’d revealed some of the similarly borderless and ambitious qualities shared by each project, as well as inspiring a closer listen on my part.

The customized self-actualization of the eccentric. — There should be some celebratory acknowledgement for the neurodivergent and terminally online generation of United States black metal artists who’d develop their own mannerisms from a plastic realm. The internet isn’t the most complete teacher sans any real practicum but the migration, or, maturation from shitposting twentysomething 4chan black metal trolls to serious Redditors pushing into their mid-30’s does seem to have allowed some real networking to occur. In this sense an ambitious and unquenchable mind like D.L.‘s took the opportunity to not only obscure himself in curation of some manner of anonymous mystique through the Czech language but also to fully imbue his guitar work with muscle memory which is entirely unrelated to the Tennessee and Minnesota wilderness and “culture” that’d otherwise surrounded. Arabesque scales, diatonic melodies, polychromatic and atonal phrasing, and a percussively plucked noise rock adjacent guitar tone naturally read a bit like an out of tune bouzouki improvisation even when there was quite a bit of precedence for the rooting of each phrase in Kostnatění‘s often self-referential buildering of theme. None of this had been lined up squarely into anything reasonably academic until ‘Oheň ho​ř​í tam, kde padl‘ (2020) sketched out the possibilities one could derive from Turkish folk music, a source of longform ‘epic’ prose levelled melodicism which suited D.L.‘s interest in the possibilities beyond the mundanity of extreme metal’s persistent structural tropes. Identity is plastic (as in malleable, evolving) from this point of view where tradition matters but in an anthropological musicological mindset. There’d been no reason to limit oneself to one tradition when the artist’s inspiration for making extreme metal was being an outlier to begin with, by marginalization or solitude.

My general response to ‘Oheň ho​ř​í tam, kde padl‘ was to view it as more than a few toes into a fresh portal, gauging the potential of certain modes with a demonstration which had obvious enthusiastic potential. My thoughts concluded as: “What interests me is whether or not this suggests future releases from the artist will incorporate melodic statements from their own voice on such a resonant level, that’d be truly exciting and perhaps more than a notable curio.” and of course in all respects ‘Úpal‘ is a vault’s load of work which has been unlocked from that point of view while also pushing away from the interesting folk-metal effect of the previous mLP and into something more surreal, performative in its limit breaking movement and again, maximal affect. Opener “Řemen” doesn’t immediately realize and reveal all of said potential energy but eases in as gently as possible and while it is a novel and melodically sound nigh black-thrashing scattered piece reminiscent of Absu‘s ‘Tara‘ it can’t help but stand out as a tentative step taken before the plunge into the meloblackened Ulcerate-esque tracers and noise rock shaken crescendos of “Hořím navždy”. At this point reviewing an album in this entirely unique thread won’t do it justice in either broader strokes of description or if attempting to pick through the minutiae for the most resonant moments if only for the somewhat challenging nature of the record reading differently in each case.

Anyone attuned to solo applications of stringed instruments such as the shamisen, biwa, bouzouki, will appreciate the illustrative thread found within each of these songs as the meandering strike of the guitar work tends to maintain its hold as the core voice of the music despite the drum patternation bearing a familiar black/death metal barrage. Where the USBM influence feels strongest and Kostnatění most at ease in their illustration comes with the calmed, ominous statements on the full listen such as the humming flow of “Rukojmí empatie“, which of course it doesn’t necessarily read like a cut from ‘Kosherat‘ but brings a similar harmonic value which fans of that sort of thing would quickly understand, this is likewise a huge step taken away from the typified dissonant black metal voicing one might not’ve expected without the context of ‘Oheň ho​ř​í tam, kde padl‘ in mind; The auto-tuned vocal work which opens “Opál” is probably the only source of complaint on my part in terms of interrupting the full listen with a novel but odd touch that could’ve been performed or replicated by a trained vocalist, for some this will be a highlight but to me it’d felt like a compromise on an album which goes to great lengths to realize its ideas otherwise.

Side B is expectedly different, on a separate thread and responding to a different impulse. An idea worthy of its own side project, the death-metallic noise rock informed clang of “Skrýt se před Bohem” would serve as the start of a second wave of holy shit moments I’d had upon induction of the full listen. We return to the generally middle eastern scaled sensibilities of rhythm beyond that point with the polyrhythmic graveyard traipse of “Nevolnost je vše, čím jsem”, the nauseating bug-eyed trauma of an overstimulated mind sinking into its own imagined reality for a clear standout among a grip of singular pieces otherwise. From there the album closes on a rounding note, another involved black-thrashing piece to reinforce the holistic verve of the full listen while also resembling ‘Ornuthi Thalassa‘ in a pointed way as it ties off each phrase; As a repeatable listening experience the balance of melodicism and aggression herein reaches a certain meditative high throughout which ultimately reads as a unique voice rather than anything too utterly challenging or inaccessibly dense beyond a persistently skronking touch which might feel abstract to start but maintains an effectively structured rant in every case.

As far as I’ve gathered from some light research ‘Úpal‘ is a contained second cycle from D.L. and does not constitute a point of identity that will stagnate or find any further iteration from this point. Kostnatění do not appear interested in presenting a curated, repetitive product for an audience so much as personal avant-garde music which lines up with their interests (or, self-imposed challenges) at the time and it seems this record isn’t where they are at today having finished it over a year ago and already completed another full-length in the time it’d taken to get this one out. With this suggestion that we are only getting one of “these” and the leagues of separation available to his work between album one and two it becomes difficult to choose between being excited for this record as a singular capture and experience in the moment or musing over what possibilities it has unlocked for future expression. Either way I’d suggest this is the point of readiness for Kostnatění where the general public should be confronted by this musician’s work as it reaches its first point of personal fortitude beyond known realms. A high recommendation.

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