Wormreich — Wormcult Revelations

Wormreich spews forth their second dark ritual to the Horned One with the release of Wormcult Revelations, an EP boasting a massive 36 minute run-time.  Wormreich is new to me, not surprising given how little I follow the USBM scene. Though the press release for this EP hails this band a continuation of Blood Stained Dusk, the bands only share one member, drummer Profana, and I don’t hear too many similarities between the two bands. No, instead of opting for Emperor-worship like BSD, Wormreich aims to emulate orthodox black metal purveyors Deathspell Omega with this piece of black metal mayhem, though they do take cues from various symphonic black metal bands.

Before we get into the review proper, can we just take a moment to admire the band’s name, album title, and artwork? Simply awesome stuff all around.

Ok, though the EP has a runtime of 36 minutes, the album is, in reality, made up of an intro/instrumental, two ambient keyboard pieces, three original black metal tracks each over seven minutes long, and one cover. This goes a long way in explaining why Wormcult Revelations is marketed as an EP and not a short full-length. The original tracks that contain black metal are a series of “Revelations” numbered I through IV. After a brief intro, the album kicks off with the track “Revelation II: Serpents of Choronozon.” The song kicks off with an explosive, drawn out scream, blasting drums, tremolo picked patterns touching on the dissonant, and drawn-out, grandiose synths.

The whole thing sounds rather intriguing, I’ll admit. And if the band had managed to mesh these two styles for the entire album it would have been fantastic. But sadly the band doesn’t quite manage to combine them successfully, choosing instead to include largely separate sections of synth work and then somewhat-but-not-too dissonant tremolo riffs. And there are these strange attempts at being atmospheric where the guitars go through these agonizingly slow and boring chord progressions and Profana is doing his own thing, blasting away with no regard for the guitars. It’s some puzzling stuff I must say. There are moments where things line up brilliantly, like the last couple minutes of “Revelation II: Serpents of Choronozon,” but these moments are few and far between.

And the unneeded synth pieces don’t help matters. I usually consider ambient/synth tracks to be attempts at evoking an atmosphere that the band was unable to create through metal alone, and as such, usually hold them in low regard. “Shaare-Maveth” is an excellent example of a crappy synth piece. Though not downright embarrassing like something from Dauði Baldrs, the thing is pretty bad and cheesy sounding. To be fair, the closing synth track, “Codex Lvcifervm,” is actually quite solid and serves as a fitting segue from the band’s original material to their cover of “Malign Paradigm,” a Deathspell Omega cover. The band further showcases their technical abilities while also demonstrating that all they need to work on is, well, writing tighter songs.

I feel somewhat at a loss as to who I should recommend this EP to. There are moments of outright hostility and aggression, slower, more atmospheric sections, as well as the synths, but the band never fully embraces any single idea. It hovers in this awkward zone where it flirts with both dissonance and symphonic elements, but never fully commits to either. The band certainly demonstrates a fair level of technical proficiency but lacks a clear sense of purpose. Still, there are definite moments of greatness, and while Wormcult Revelations might not be worth picking up, Wormreich itself is worth keeping an eye on. If the band can manage to iron out the kinks, which there are a number of, I’m sure that these Americans could come up with something excellent in the future.