Deathspell Omega probably don't spend too much time on sales strategies. Resistant to interviews and elusive of identification, the mysterious French metal shapeshifters are too cloaked to be marketed and too complex to be defined. They splice their orthodox satanic/philosophical black metal surge and cavernous math-rock contortion with enviable technical skills and forcefulness, slamming disjointed parts into one another hard enough for the joints to yield to their will. For the last decade, they've made some of the most fitful and demanding heavy records in the world-- including 2004's Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice and 2007's Fas - Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum-- and they've gone out of their way to not be overexposed. They don't play live or do press kits.
But Deathspell Omega did smartly elect to follow 2010's Paracletus-- a masterpiece full-length of aggressive misdirection and instant, infinite tangents-- with two EPs, last year's one track Diabolus Absconditus and this year's Drought, a six-song, 23-minute short that is comparatively slight in both scope and power. Consider this a sacrificial effort, then, since most anything that chased Paracletus might have felt like a letdown. Drought certainly does, thanks mostly to its stature and structure. The six parts themselves are good, but they're pieced together clumsily. The lengthy instrumentals that serve as bookends seem simply tacked on, surrounding the other four tracks rather than frame them. Opener "Salowe Vision" begins with patience and texture that suggests the intricate paths of Brise-Glace, as bowed cymbals slink through decaying riffs and gales of background noise. The track builds toward post-rock glory but stops just short of the expected payoff, flatly fading into "Fiery Serpents". At least the chaser is itself exhilarating: Built by repeating short rhythmic and melodic phrases and then letting them implode, "Fiery Serpents" subtly reimagines the lessons of minimalism within a black metal blunderbuss, a notion not entirely removed from the band that started a firestorm of stateside "troo believers" last year.
The abrupt jerk between the first two tracks reflects the real problem with Drought, which, unlike Paracletus, isn't long enough to sweep you into its tide of spasticity or well-built enough to maintain the momentum it sometimes lassoes. The 100-second "Sand", for instance, plods behind a repetitive riff, settling into a groove suitable for watching the guitars work overhead; but goofy, ghoulish multi-tracked vocals steal the spotlight just as soon as it's noticed. And just as soon as those have set in, the song-- which feels mostly like an undeveloped bauble, or something the band just had to fit in somewhere-- cuts to "Abrasive Swirling Murk", another no-transition jump deep into non sequitur. Closer "The Crackled Book of Life" is a brisk instrumental, built on a riff that multiplies until, true to Deathspell Omega anti-form, the song opens into a midsection of glowing keyboards and piercing countermelodies. When Deathspell Omega return for a final, full-volume take on the theme, it feels like a victory lap that's neither deserved nor necessary. It's the simplistic bow on a package that was never very neat at all.
