In the 1920s, a little-known American short-story writer was writing in the shadows fantastic stories inspired in particular by Edgar Allan Poe, but also some dark and disturbing fantasy inspired by Lord Dunsany's period Le Livre des Merveilles, referring to an immemorial past and to lands where we cannot wake up. Later, but especially after his death, this author would become much better known for his fantastic texts in which the supernatural is embodied in cosmic abominations that defy human comprehension. It would be a mistake, however, to overlook Howard Phillips Lovecraft's earlier work, especially the fantasy texts collected in Dreamlands. Among them, the novella The Dream Quest of Kadath the Unknown has remained an unrivalled masterpiece for its long, epic, marvellous and frightening journey. So when we see Gironde-based black metal band The Great Old Ones return five years after their Cosmicism album (review) to offer a musical adaptation of this novella in the form of the Kadath album, we inevitably want to say that we've been dreaming of it!
The Great Old Ones have always been able to offer us ferocious, complex black metal whose melodies energetically take us to abysses beyond reason. Although this time the band is tackling a very different part of Lovecraft's oeuvre, the music remains in the same spirit: the first track, Me, The Dreamer, sets the tone with its fast, incisive guitars in the background, the drums pounding furiously while the vocals express greed and determination above all else; rather than contemplating the Dreamlands, The Great Old Ones focuses on the obsessive desire of hero Randolph Carter to find the city of his dreams, even if it means braving all the dangers to which the sleeper who has descended the seven hundred steps of the Deep Sleep is exposed, all the way to the immeasurable Azathoth. Now it's our turn to embark on a quest that will last seven tracks of furious riffs interspersed here and there with a few bridges and breaks, all at least seven minutes long with the exception of the transitional The Gathering; the title of the longest of them is enough to make anyone who has read the novella shudder, since it's called Leng...
The journey is harsh, but all the tracks give us the vigour we need to carry on through demons and wonders. A few hissing samples and choirs accompany the guitars, drums and relentless vocals here and there, but in the background. We're particularly struck by the violence of Those From Ulthar, which in fact focuses on the appalling peril from which the cats of Ulthar save the narrator, with that riff whose claws dig into our hearts, the variations in its tempo that take us from despondency to panic; the disturbing melody of In the Mouth of Madness doesn't fail to surprise us either. Nevertheless, the most relentless track is the terrible (quasi-)instrumental Leng, where the guitars lead us sinuously into the frightful atmosphere created by the drums and bass... We're shattered with terror, and the sudden calm of the bridge with its few French lyrics only serves to drive us deeper into it before a charge much heavier than anything we've been through so far reminds us that we absolutely must flee this mysterious plateau, soon accompanied by a haunting loop. The dream ends appropriately with the epic Astral Void, which in the text corresponds to the arrival at the Onyx Castle and what follows.
If you've opted for the collector's edition of the album, there's still a surprise in store for you, as the eleven-and-a-half minute bonus track takes us out of Lovecraft territory and into a cover of Jean-Michel Jarre's Second Rendez-Vous. The French musician's beautiful electronic piece already sounded like a call from beyond the stars, but here it changes form to be adorned with saturated guitar and drums - but it's above all the icy atmosphere of the final acceleration that makes this cover so much more interesting than the original.
This is the first time that The Great Old Ones have allowed so much time to elapse between two of their albums, and it's clear that these years have not been in vain: while we've loved each of their albums and seen a progression between them, the band seems to have gained in depth with Kadath, as well as successfully appropriating a work that we love enormously. In the meantime, their colleagues in Blut Aus Nord have also turned to the master from Providence with the Disharmonium albums (this one and this one), but their approach differs, as does the style of the two bands: Blut Aus Nord are more psychedelic, developing thick layers of music that lose us in the infinity of Lovecraft's universe, whereas The Great Old Ones favour a more direct and epic approach, centred on melodies and aggression that take us on a journey as resolute humans to these unspeakable terrors. We leave Kadath full of energy to explore the Dreamlands in our turn, perhaps mad enough to want to venture beyond the Basalt Pillars of the West in search of distant Cathuria, and in any case with the desire to get another taste of Lovecraftian black metal.
