Trepaneringsritualen — Perfection & Permanence

The almighty Cold Spring imprint presents Perfection & Permanence, the new album by Trepaneringsritualen. For those unfamiliar, Trepaneringsritualen is the moniker of Swedish noise terrorist Thomas Ekelund. Also sometimes referred to as TxRxP, Ekelund’s project has been rather prolific since it’s inception in 2008, with a number releases on such labels as: Hanson, Harsh Head Rituals, Malignant, Release the Bats, and now U.K. mainstay Cold Spring. Ekelund explores religion, the occult, and other esoteric themes through a caustic blend of death industrial, power electronics and industrial noise. Perfection & Permanence, available on LP and CD is his latest vessel for disseminating these dark explorations.

Perfection & Permanence offers 10 tracks of dark atmospherics, blackened drone, dense loops, rhythmic pulses, and harrowing vocals. Despite the delivery of dark electronics there also a metal vibe present in Ekelund’s latest statement. The album opens with “Venerated and Despised,” a synth drone layered with reverberating pulses and robotic vocal mumblings that hang in the backdrop. It’s a mesmerizing track, but one which acts merely as a prelude to much darker tidings ahead. The following track “Black Egg” sets that path for how the rest of the albums transpires. Haunting, organic loops unfold in dense rhythmic patterns as Ekelund unleashes scathing vocals, processed and tormented, dripping of bile and hellfire. “Castrate Christ” follows in similar fashion, but the vocals sound even more seething and angry, growling about slithering subterfuge.

We get a brief respite with “Liken Ingen Jord Vill Svalja.” It’s a brief interlude of degraded loops, that sound like billowing plumes of wind or exhaust, layered with synth pulses. It’s back to business with “Alone A Cross Abyss,” where subdued beats collide with vocals that get even more degraded and manipulated as the album progresses. Ekelund’s growls sound more akin to static than a human voice. We get another sonic detour with “Thirty Nine Lashes,” which sounds like a piece of industrial machinery clanging away, matched with subdued, delayed vocals. The piece provides a calm, though eerie, prelude to the synth driven “The Seventh Man.” The penultimate track “A Ceaseless Howling” is all dark atmospherics in what I can only describe is the sonic backdrop to a dystopian wasteland. The album ends with “He Who Is My Mirror,” where brisk-paced rhythmic industrial beats and dense atmospherics, accompany angry goblin vocals.

In conclusion, Trepaneringsritualen delivers an album of focused tension between some very dark elements, both sonically and thematically. Without a doubt, one of the best albums I’ve heard all year.