Band:	I Shalt Become
Album:	Poison
Style:	Atmospheric black metal, Depressive black metal, Symphonic black metal
Release date:	June 21, 2010
A review by:	Troy Killjoy

01. Like A Lamb To The Slaughter...
02. Black Swan Events
03. Harlow's Vertical Chamber Apparatus
04. No Quarter At The Somme
05. Ghosts
06. Leaving Watership Down
07. The Swarming Of The Locusts
08. Doubt
09. The Finest Cut Of The Scalpel
10. Absolve Me

Atmospheric / symphonic black metal
United States
Moribund Records

Line-up on the CD:
S. Holliman - vocals, all instruments


I Shalt Become first turned heads more than a decade ago with the release of Wanderings, a prodigious album "called out" for its arrant Burzum worship. After its release, Holliman apparently laid his work to rest, leaving many in the metal community with a familiar bittersweet feeling.

Nearly 15 years pass before I Shalt Become is resurrected; Holliman then begins releasing a new album each year with refreshing consistency. The metal community rejoices...sort of. In truth, most jaded listeners judged Holliman's new works as menial and void of energy, specifically Poison. I, however, welcome this album for its prodigal disposition. Mixing the most prominent elements of melancholic black metal subgenres, classical compositions, and eerie ambience, this album is seemingly above being subject to the laws of personal classification or instrumental morality. What this album evokes is a myriad of emotional complexities most artists only hope to achieve in their finest moments. In short: S. Holliman has released a true modern masterpiece of metal music.

Weaving woefully poetic verses around the haunting melodies of violins, the grim edge of sparse-used distorted guitars, and tranquil-to-militant drumming, I Shalt Become ascertains the listener is bound to writhe in torment as their personal degradation is put into audio form and forced into their ear canal. The cleaner sounding classical instruments make for a perfect contrast to Holliman's murky beastly shrieks.

Like Death in The Seventh Seal, nobody escapes [this unpolished gem].

Poison focuses on instrumental interplay that awakens the carnal despondency we are all bound to instinctively. This is the true doleful nature of Man: the inevitability of self-annihilation. A suicide in every language.

Quote:
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

- Matthew Arnold (Dover Beach)


Website: http://www.myspace.com/ishaltbecome