The first track on Burial Hex’s Book of Delusions starts with a sample of Charles Manson from the 1994 Freemansonry interview in which he discusses, amongst other things, the source of “rock and roll,” how Shakespeare compromised his art for money, and when it’s appropriate to use a pistol. Underneath his rantings are a variety of overlapping drones, aggressive reverberations, explosive rumblings, and menacing effects. It takes a lot to drown out Charles Manson but Burial Hex manages to do it. Then the sample cuts out and the emphasis shifts to Clay Ruby’s own whispery intonations— “Christ have mercy on your soul” and other Christian clichés—emoted in a way that might actually be a burial hex.

Whether or not the artist takes himself seriously, he certainly has his schtick down, and the darkness never lets up. And so goes the rest of Book of Delusions: four tracks from the limited 2011 LP plus two tracks each from earlier split releases with Zola Jesus and Kinit Her, all of which work together to demonstrate an artist with a strong auteurist stamp. What makes Burial Hex different from other artists, and in fact what makes the lazy label “dark ambient” inapplicable in his case, is that underneath the facade of blackness and evil is astonishing musicianship, where the tracks ultimately create songs in a unique brand of apocalyptic gospel from hell.

The first three tracks are continuous, and while “Urlicht” builds on the first piece with more background drones and rumblings, it all culminates in “Crowned & Conquering Child,” which first introduces a guttural and unintelligible voice over electronic pulsing and percussive crashes that sound like lashings, then follows with screaming vocals pitched perfectly on the edge of madness and terror. Traces of actual musicianship are all over the place; eventually the shapeshifting music becomes an extraordinarily intense song, featuring a choir of a thousand moaning voices accompanied by piano. The end result is heavy and beautiful, but not at all ambient.

“The Book of Delusions” also succeeds due to its musicality. Built upon a low kinetic throb and treated guitar, this is fifteen minutes of trance-inducing ritual music made out of lo-fi death disco, something like early Cabaret Voltaire covering Joy Division’s version of “Sister Ray.”

Of the bonus tracks, “God of War and Battle” is the best example of Burial Hex’s strengths. It starts quietly, with crickets chirping in the background behind a piano being played/practiced. The piano work hints at absolute genius ability, and after several tentative minutes as if warming up, it breaks out into an impressive frenzy. Then the lowest, throatiest vocals imaginable come into the sinister mix and, again, Burial Hex has taken truly musical sensibility and bastardized it.

“Storm Clouds” and “Go Crystal Tears” are the prettiest, most conventional pieces here; concoctions of sorrowful strings and piano fronted by tortured vocals that are screamed from a place of great pain and make for rewarding but difficult listening. The latter adds a slight electronic undercurrent, leading nicely into “Temple of the Flood,” an epic noise piece that evolves out of fuzzy drones and has all sorts of squiggly electronics and infernal explosions over a ritualistic bongo rhythm, more piano, and liquid sounds. An epilogue of pipe organ is a fitting end to the track and to the disc.

Burial Hex is a great name, by the way—an appropriate label for an artist who makes tracks lamenting a doomed afterlife and a project which is now supposedly being laid to rest. As if to underline the classic goth/industrial connections to this music, the collection has been remastered by Martin Bowes of longtime darkwave act Attrition.