In 2005 I was fifteen years old, and my burgeoning interest in all things black metal was all-consuming. I was drawn to the genre like a lunar moth to a pale flame and was fiercely inspired by various artists within the genre, particularly the classic 2nd wave Scandinavian bands, but also to the handful of USBM bands that I had been exposed to at that time, namely, Xasthur, Leviathan, Krieg, and Nachtmystium. Xasthur’s catalog from the early and mid 2000s was so bleak and soul-draining that it simply couldn’t be ignored, and the early Leviathan releases were just as harsh and bitter, but there was something else too, an element of weirdness that made Leviathan stand out. Not long after I discovered Leviathan and fell in love with “The Tenth Sub-Level of Suicide”, a great thing happened.
In 2005, Wrest (of Leviathan) released Lurker of Chalice, a new (at that time) project (and eponymous album) that would change my view of heavy music entirely. Lurker of Chalice didn’t boast the same ferocious buzzsaw riffs and agonized hateful screeching I had grown to love in bands like Gorgoroth or Carpathian Forest, this was something different. Slow, methodical, yet unpredictable and more atmospheric. This wasn’t just a black metal album, it was a gateway to another world altogether. Lurker is an odd entity to say the least, with its eerie song titles and spiraling dark ambiance, moaning guitars and sound clips from God knows where, all painstakingly blended together to create an atmosphere unparalleled and inimitable; a grand expression of something I can’t quite understand wholly or put effectively to words, but maybe not everything needs to be explained and vivisected away to nothing. To summarize, Lurker of Chalice feels like driving alone on the highway in those tired, dreary hours when the sun hangs low and the darkness is just about to swallow the horizon, and the trees on either side of the road pierce upward like vast living walls of shadows looming over other shadows, wavering in amorphous black that looks like it rolls on into forever.
It’s 2020 currently, and I’m still spellbound by this album almost two decades later because of it’s uniqueness and genuine charm, and that dark, ineffable place it takes me to when I listen to it. Lurker of Chalice is a masterpiece, plain and simple.
Support Wrest and Lurker of Chalice, listen below:
Lurker of Chalice by Lurker of Chalice
Towers of Rust 