Lurker of Chalice is a side project of one of my favorite American Black Metal artists, Wrest (of Leviathan fame). I had always heard of this project and the various comments that surrounded it made it sound extremely promising, so as you might imagine I was quite excited to hear it. I’m glad to report that the wait was worth it; Lurker of Chalice is superb.

The album (which is in fact a 2002 demo!) combines depressive and hypnotic Black Metal with trance inducing ambient elements and some very deep and dark guitar passages. The thing that makes the listening experience so intense is the way all the elements are seamlessly melded together; you can be listening to a very intense blast beat frenzy with some deep clean voice choirs when all of a sudden the song takes a 180º spin and a beautiful melancholic ambient section is thrown in. It seems that Wrest’s strength (which can be heard in Tentacles of Whorror too) is his ability to combine so many elements in his songs and make them work, thing which I really like about his compositions.

Where Leviathan feels a bit more elaborate in it’s Black Metal parts, Lurker of Chalice feels a bit more straight oriented; also in this album we find a lot of cleaner or even totally clean lyrics. But there are also a few elements that can be comparable to Leviathan such as his bass work which is always pretty good and plays an important role in his songs, and also the production which is very dreamy (even more than on Leviathan’s last two full-lengths) and engulfing, making the listening experience even more powerful. Also, the album manages to maintain a very sick and distorted touch which sometimes reminds me of Blut Aus Nord’s The Work which Transforms God, but with a more abstract feel to it, which is more of the style of Wrest.

Wrest has proven once again that Black Metal can still be interesting and that experimentation can result better than playing by the book, thing that many Europeans seem to love doing. Fans of dark and atmospheric music will not regret picking this one up.