Our editorial team is in turmoil! GosT is one of those projects that divide our staff, and every release reopens an eternal debate between the "it's rubbish" and the "it's not rubbish". Bringing you a review is therefore a perilous balancing act between the quest for the interesting points of this Prophecy, a certain distance, but also a diplomatic act to avoid provoking the implosion of the site you are currently reading!
Texan James Lollar had broken his routine with Valediction (2019) by moving away from his mix of darksynth and black metal and, like the evolution of Perturbator, inviting the nostalgic, gothic and cold influences that still extended on Rites of Love and Reverence. As the artwork for Prophecy might have spoiled it, this time it's back to familiar territory: violence, demonic incantations, noisy assaults... GosT is closer to Possessor than his last albums. Chaos, excessive saturation and a few bells to create a biblical and funereal atmosphere: the title track sets the scene with, as always, these surprising and/or messy changes of pace and the malicious pleasure the artist takes in seizing on the codes of darksynth to spew them out with turbulence and exaggerated aggression.
In our mind, Prophecy is never as interesting as when it goes all the way, in the moments when the filthy violence of black metal mixes with more old-school references, between new wave and old-fashioned industrial. "It's messy, inaudible and lazy" : we hear you, grumpy people! Maybe it is. But at its best (the frenetic and psychedelic Death in Bloom, Decadent Decay, Widow Song, Through the Water), GosT pulls off this strange cross between cold wave, Mayhem and Skinny Puppy (the two met symbolically recently with a cover of Assimilate by Alien Vampires featuring vocals by Attila Csihar...). A touch of gothic spleen, infernal curses bellowed in a nasal voice, a taste for terrifyingly unpredictable collage, a haze of unholy guitars, a few biting riffs and, above all, a tendency to push things to their limits, mixing savage violence and a desire to waddle.
In the meantime, GosT treads familiar ground, offering what you'd expect from an ill-bred cousin of Perturbator and Carpenter Brut: several tracks, despite their taste for obscurity, will reassure darksynth fans looking for something to dance to. That doesn't mean you can't appreciate the menacing flavour of Deceiver, with its big, ominous layers and distant vocals haunting its darkest corners, the possessed energy of Golgotha, the more rhythmic / EBSM approach of Shelter or the grandiloquent theatricality of Leviathan. However, it's true that GosT still have this tendency to rely on well-known and familiar gimmicks. Is it for ease of use, to fill in the gaps and save time, or is it to better pervert them later on? Take your pick.
Prophecy is presented as a 'return to basics' for GosT. While this kind of move always raises its share of questions as to what motivates such a move, the result lives up to expectations. GosT sounds exactly what you'd expect from GosT: satanic horror, noise and fury. While we may be annoyed by the confusion that emerges from the stacking of layers or the musician's tendency to hide behind the genre's tried and tested codes, we can also applaud all the moments when GosT fully embraces its most wanton ritualistic tendencies to deliver a sound that hurts and is at one with its dementia. GosT have not finished dividing people, but its outrageous style allows it to stand out and attract attention: it's up to you to decide whether Prophecy will intrigue you or incur your wrath.
