Band:	Vessel Of Iniquity
Album:	The Path Unseen
Style:	Noise, Black metal
Release date:	October 2022

01. Blood Magic
02. The Path Unseen
03. Abyss Of Unknowing
04. A Door Once Opened

At first, you'll hear shit all because all the intricacies of The Path Unseen are hidden behind a wall of overwhelming noise. Actually, at first you'll hear shit all because there's nothing to hear for four minutes except a wall of blast beats and a two-chord riff noise. Then, "Blood Magic" introduces a dissonant, descending melodic tremolo guitar and ebbs out into an ominous, industrial, Godflesh-like chugging. You'll likely be as confused as I was before the title track starts, upon which start to become apparent the strengths of Vessel Of Iniquity's latest effort.

Godflesh is an obvious source of inspiration, but every corner of The Path Unseen is filled with an abrasive, pervasive, glitchy noise as if you had played Isis' "Celestial (The Tower)" in hyperlapse (then added some classic black metal tremolo and replaced the shouts with echoing, whispered shrieks). Shortly after the three-minute mark, the title track breaks down into a chugging, pulsating riff playing a beautiful, ascending melody partly reminiscent of Locrian's Infinite Dissolution (not to mention the vocals sound very similar), and the same riff will go on to build most of the following eight-minute track. Hell, it's even danceable at times, if you can get through all the distortion.

To get through the distortion, you'll need a good set of headphones or speakers, and a fair bit of imagination. I'm not kidding, parts of this album are nigh unlistenable without both. As I said, the first time you hear "Blood Magic", you'll think, "what the fuck am I listening to?" (actually, this is how I still think about a lot of the music I adore, and I love it), but the second time around you'll be able to discern more and more of the underlying beauty of Vessel Of Iniquity, and the fact that you had to try to do it makes it all the more rewarding, while adding to the fact that the noisy production really adds to the claustrophobic, insane atmosphere of this music.

Just take a quick look at that cover art. It's a very apt visual representation of what the album sounds like. A slightly anthropomorphic shape falling down into a torrent of pixelly shapes and chaotic, abstract forms. On the final track, the same insane wall of noise that started out the album returns, and ends up repeating a dissonant, ascending motif for several minutes before abruptly ending in static distortion.

Yep, behind the incredible wall of noise that masks The Path Unseen lies a catchy and impressive core of blackened post-hardcore. Sort of like the aforementioned mix of Godflesh and Locrian, then spiced up with a production job so abrasive it makes the early Anaal Nathrakh albums sound positively tame in comparison. Will you like it? Depends on if you like your eardrums being raped to the danceable tones of a schizophrenic episode.