Album Review: The Great Old Ones - Kadath
Reviewed by Sam Jones
I was overjoyed to find that French black metal act The Great Old Ones would be returning in mid-January to release their first full length work in six years. Formed in 2009 out of Bordeaux, France, The Great Old Ones are styled as a black metal act incorporating other outside ideas and elements into their sound to give their performance this elevated grandeur that is required when you name yourselves after one of H.P. Lovecraft’s titular forces across his writings. Kadath, so titled from Lovecraft’s short story The Dream-Quest Of Unknown Kadath, is the band’s fifth album and has been styled as a full blown adaptation of that very story, ending the longest gap yet established between full length records for the band thus far. I absolutely adore their previous release, 2019’s Cosmicism, having replayed it over and over upon its initial release, and upon seeing this record announced I was hyped to see what The Great Old Ones could deliver. This will be their third album released via Season Of Mist, slated for January 24th. I was very keen to see what the band would do here, giving us over an hour of material to work with, adapting a short story wherein Lovecraft really dialled in the weird elements his work is revered for and so I dove straight in.
The Great Old Ones, as aforementioned have always possessed this gravitas to their soundscape that separates them from the slew of other black metal acts. I believe another reason for this is their willingness to write much longer pieces than their contemporaries would prefer, for it gives them the opportunity to really divulge into their source material and give Lovecraft’s writings their due in extreme metal. Many have used Lovecraftian elements within their songwriting but I’ve often felt The Great Old Ones truly get it; it’s not supposed to sound like any contemporary work of metal, but the oddity should be woven into the riffs and course of the songwriting. Take this record for instance. Whilst the band are deploying riffs and songwriting that have familiar track progressions to them, nothing too deeply out of the ordinary, there’s always an underlying perplexity occurring in the background that details something isn’t altogether right, something is amiss in the natural order and the longer the record persists the more stronger this aberration becomes. Rather than simply use Lovecraft’s aesthetic, The Great Old Ones truly embody it. This is why the band have endured so strongly; they do not need to bring the heaviest material down upon us, for their aesthetic and atmosphere enables us to buy into this warped landscape with ease.
Attention must be directed towards the songwriting as a whole for it is nothing short of incredible as to The Great Old Ones’ capacity to write these extensive pieces, with purpose, with deliberate track development, without losing us for one second and then keep throwing these piece as at us with nary a drop of enthusiasm on the audience’s part. Some could dub the band’s style as Progressive but throughout my time with the band I doubt I could reciprocate that notion as it doesn’t change itself up enough nor does a track feel totally different towards the end as it was at the beginning. However, throughout your time spent with Kadath, it would be undeniable to state the track you’re listening to doesn’t assume the full grandeur and might that it has the potential to become. A track may start small, acoustic guitar, a minute riff underlying the bombastic power lying in wait, yet this isn’t for long as the band will soon open it up further and further until that miniature opening has become a full fledged cosmic entity that’s consuming and dominating your entire sensory horizon. The longer runtimes also gift the band time to let their music breathe, providing a fulfilling and organic development to their sound which conventional time restraints do not often allow for.
Like much of their work, Kadath features very few quieter moments and even when these are utilised it’s often to give us some rest before the band dive straight back into their performance. What this does is provide a breathless and roaring experience that isn’t about to relinquish its grasp on us merely because it’s time with us is longer than most; if people think the band will go easy on us they’ll be deeply mistaken as they take us on this wild journey with hardly a moment given for us to recuperate before they do it all over again and again. However the band do employ a break within the album as a whole with “The Gathering”, this more nuanced, melancholic piece that really immerses us within the short story this record is adapting, helping us look back upon what we’ve been through so far. It’s also necessary since, by this point, the band have thrown massive swathes of cathartic intensity our way and we’ll need some moment to decompress before the band assail us yet again, otherwise whatever gems the band have in store for us will see their quality dramatically diminished. This is all the more essential when we consider the following track is the longest the band have written in over a decade. The Great Old Ones know they can’t just dominate our senses in-stop without our engagement lessening thus smaller, intimate periods are required to make their grander sequences shine.
One aspect that I think is hideously underrated across The Great Old Ones altogether are the drums. Though the guitar work, and its encapsulating soundscapes, are amongst the primary reasons people adore this band, their drumming is really second to none as even throughout the band’s more nuanced moments the drums are providing patterns and fills that are not only engaging but fascinating to listen to. Like the overall songwriting, the band don’t double down with ferocity at every turn, instead using their extended time to flesh out their soundscape and in that familiar manner do the drums delegate when and how their impact shall be greatest reckoned. Only in select moments are blast beats employed and only when the band are firing on all cylinders are blast beats even considered, otherwise the drums are all across the spectrum with what they may be delivering. There’ll be bass drums, triplets of Tom-toms,, more sporadic patterns, cymbal crashing etc all the while they’re given their due within the mix. More than enough clarity is given to their playing as whilst the band ramp up the cathartic nature of their songwriting, the drums are always audible and prominent in the background. They’re never drowned out as drums can be across a demanding black metal record such as this.
In conclusion, Kadath is a sweeping work of extreme metal that takes us throughout its short story’s namesake from start to finish, spanning over an hour long, and not at all do we quail from its scope nor its intensity. It’s been six years since their last album and I can’t help but feel like every day waiting for this new record was worth it; the band are regarded for their extremely high bar for quality and frankly I don’t believe they have a single lesser record in their discography. The band are in an exceptionally rare percentile of bands who know how to play and write longer pieces of extreme metal because they understand you can’t just assault your audience for ten or minutes straight without taking them into consideration. Their track progressions are organic and as each track comes to their conclusions, you feel as if this was the only way such a piece could have developed. I hardly felt the time pass at all and I’m relieved to have experienced Kadath before it sees its proper release date come January 24th. I’m ecstatic to see The Great Old Ones play Fortress Festival next May.
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