Genre: Ritual Ambient / Necro Electronics

Tracklist:

01 Will To The Chapel
02 8 Pentacles
03 River Of Los
04 Bo – II – Ne

Burial Hex is the solo project of Wisconsin-based musician Clay Ruby, who after building an underground reputation through a slew of CD-R and cassette releases in tiny editions, now seems poised to emerge at least halfway out of the shadows of occult obscurity with this CD release on the cult English label Aurora Borealis.

The four tracks which comprise Initiations are all around 18 to 19 minutes in length, which makes for a satisfyingly lengthy listen, and also conveniently enough makes the album easy to issue on vinyl. And guess what? With label Aurora Borealis being the quality act they are, Initiations is also available as a double vinyl LP.

Opening track ‘Will To The Chapel’ lulls the unsuspecting listener into a false sense of security with an orchestral overture – darksome and brooding, to be sure, but not overtly terrifying. However, the gloves are dramatically whipped off at around the four-minute mark, as the minor-key strings are decimated by a ferocious onslaught of black noise. The label’s website lists the instrumentation used as “feedback, voice, PAIA 4700, samples, microphones, homemade oscillators, metal, organs, earth, distortion, delay, insect, reverb, electric piano and analog tape”, but your guess is as good as mine as to what the exact ingredients of this unholy racket are, beyond some tormented shrieks and low dragon-like growls. Possessed cries of “Thy will be done!” punctuate queasy waves of gritty lo-fi noise and feedback, something like Burial Hex’s labelmates Wraiths or early Brighter Death Now. This is the side of Burial Hex’s sound which featured on the recent split single with Silvester Anfang, also released by Aurora Borealis. A late reprise of the opening orchestral theme seems ironically mocking of the listener’s shattered sense of security – by now it’s clear that anything could happen on this album, and all bets are off about what we’ll be subjected to next.

‘8 Pentacles’ is a more drone-based composition than ‘Will To The Chapel’, developing a powerfully evocative atmosphere of dread and menace though thick, tarry layers of sub-bass rumbles and bestial respirations, dotted with ‘feeble screams from forests unknown’, to borrow a phrase from Burzum, and sporadic embellishments of glitch and crackle. The end result is more like black ambient than the first track, which definitely inclines more towards noise and power electronics. ‘8 Pentacles’ has affinities with the music of Nordvargr and TenHornedBeast, and TenHornedBeast, of course, have also appeared on Aurora Borealis. It seems more and more inevitable that Burial Hex should have found a place among the various nocturnal, cthonic entities who lurk within the Aurora Borealis roster – the Burial Hex brand of malevolent extremity fits right in there.

‘8 Pentacles’ grinds to an agonised halt amidst a discordant clamour of muffled detonations and metallic chiming, to be replaced by ‘River Of Los’, which blends rhythmic washes of cymbal with sweeping analogue synth chords to evocative effect. There’s an epic, cinematic grandeur to this track, which also incorporates middle-eastern percussion, layers of whispered vocal recitation, and a much stronger melody than on previous tracks. I was reminded of Bobby Beausoleil’s synth soundtrack for the Kenneth Anger film Lucifer Rising, as well as the exotica-tinged dark ambient of :Golgatha: and Lapis Niger, but overall I prefer the more abstract dronescape of ‘8 Pentacles’.

The final track, ‘Bo – II – Ne’, reverts back to the heavy textured drones of ‘8 Pentacles’, in a claustrophobic labyrinth of grind and roar, the unfathomable machinations of a diabolic doom generator, as impassive and relentless as a kamikaze squadron of Daleks and sharks. See that door marked ‘Exit’? No, of course you don’t – there’s no escaping here.

It’s heartening to find in Burial Hex an artist unafraid to allow himself the freedom and flexibility to experiment with their sound and not confine himself to working within one narrow genre. Whilst the whole album is undeniably ultra-dark and redolent of the left-hand path, there are many shades of black to be discerned here, from full-on noise and power electronics through black industrial and drone ambient to more straightforward dark ambient and even Vangelis-style melodic synth electronics (check out the 13th to 16th minutes of ‘River Of Los’). This is an auspicious debut which immediately establishes Burial Hex as a name to be conjured with in the benighted borderland of extreme ritual ambient and death industrial.

The Initiations CD comes packaged in an ominous back card sleeve with minimal artwork and information, which contains inserts with some gruesome and disturbing photos. And, as previously mentioned, there’s also a double vinyl edition with different artwork.