If you live in the Midwestern or North Eastern portion of the United States right now, there's a good chance you're either buried in a snowy tomb or getting lashed by hellishly cold winds any time you step outside. This is the kind of truly grim and frostbitten weather that will envelop you in its icy tendrils and chip away at your will to live. And this is precisely the right environment and mindset to listen to Oceanclots, the new album from the prolific black metal entity known as Dhampyr.
Dhampyr was initially a one-man operation that served as an outlet for multi-instrumentalist H.L.'s unique brand of acid damaged black metal. Recently, though, bassist E and additional session vocalists Jacob Thomas and Maxim Saint Laurent have been added to the fold. The addition of these two new musicians has done little to temper H.L.'s singular black metal vision, and Oceanclots is a fitting new entry into his dauntingly vast and eccentric discography. With such a massive and varied back catalog, it's hard to anticipate what new Dhampyr music is going to sound like. It could be the straight-forward depressive black metal of White Fire Laudanum, the electronic drone of Tombs of the Hetaerae, or Mellville's Tomb – a single, hour long ambient composition. On Oceanclots, H.L. hews closest to depressive black metal, but he still throws enough curve balls to keep listeners on their toes.
The album opens with "Mine Isabella of Frosts & Poppypi," a song that flagrantly showcases H.L.'s affection for psychedelia and acoustic folk right from the start. This won't come as a surprise to anyone who's familiar with Dhampyr's previous work, but new initiates might be aghast at his wanton disregard for traditional stylistic tropes. It only get s weirder from there, too. At the end of "Waltz of the Salivating Avalanche," the song breaks down into what sounds like a jazz freak out. There's also a pronounced shoegaze influence present throughout the album, and two of the tracks ("Cholera Meditation for Scylla" and "Alyssum (Easterland White)) are just ambient, droning noise.
This might sound overwhelming, but rest assured that all of the weirdness is couched in many of the typical trappings of depressive black metal. The requisite shrieks of pain and angst are still present, and the atmosphere is cold and bleak. Additionally, the production is the lowest of the lo-fi, and the resulting cavernous sounding audio serves to isolate listeners from any emotional punch the songs might deliver beyond the realm of "lonely and miserable." Despite the myriad of non-metallic influences present, Oceanclots is most certainly a black metal album. Oceanclots will be out on March 10th via Acephale Winter Productions. Below you can stream the track "A Kodak of Guncotton Shipwrecks" which was recently premiered at Black Metal & Brews.
https://soundcloud.com/blackmetalandbrews-1/dhampyr-a-kodak-of-guncotton-shipwrecks
