Mastery - Barbaric Usurpation Of The Hypereonic Black Metal [tUMULt - 2011]Mastery is a one man Black metal project from the Bay Area USA who mixed together punked & pounding grim lo-fi Blacked metal with elements of creative & twisted guitar texturing, off kilter 80’s movie or dark industrial synth scapes/ electronics and odd dips into grim/ creepy ambience. “Barbaric Usurpation Of The Hypereonic Black Metal Throne” is a two disc collection that brings together the projects first five demos and on the whole it’s a great ride into blasting bleak blacked metal that’s weaved with all manner of creative, surprising & wonky edges. The two discs are laid in a chronically order with demo’s five to three,which were release between 2009 & 2006, taking up disc one. And demos one to two, which were released between 2005 to 2006, taking up disc two. The first disc finds the projects sound a bit more polished; though it’s still very lo-fi/ noisy, quirky & off-kilter. Where as the second disc is much more lo-fi, clamouring, primitive and frenzied in it’s more straight forward black metal attack, though saying that the second discs has it’s creative and oddly twisted moments too there just a bit more buried into the raging & frantic blacked metal attack On the whole both discs are rewarding & consistent, but I guess I find the more recent demos the most satisfying & more distinctive of this two disc set. The first disc goes from early Coil like 80’s horror synth scaping, onto rapid & raging prime-evil guitar riff harmonics meeting chugging punked black metal, through to bucking & wavering 80’s speediness that’s lined with grim riff edges. Onto the wonderfully lengthy last track which starts out with a brooding & noise mix of warbling church organs, black feed back churn and buried vocals, then moves onto sliding & descending blacked riff battering, through to weird, grim, & almost slight jazzy/70’s clean electric guitar texturing that’s a swim with stretched & noise-up vocals, through to punk-up blacked mats of chugging yet wavering riff matter. All told this is a rather splendid two disc collection that highlights the grim, frenzied yet slight off-kilter & creative talents of this one man Bay area project. It's another great & distinctive black metal release from tUMULt label which is of course run and curated by Andee Connors who is one of the co-owners of the world renowned experimental record shop & mail order company Aquarius Records. Roger Batty
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