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Real-life brutalities frequently eclipse fictional ones, and the world routinely serves up enough atrocities before breakfast to satisfy the hungriest psychopathic appetites. Of course, all the appalling acts we witness doesn’t stop us from also embracing mountains of abominable art. Chiefly because we satiate so many of our demons exploring myriad and malevolent artistic avenues.
In music’s case, reveling in horrifying noise fulfills a desire many of us have to cast aside our public faces and dwell in the deepest shadows. Hateful and hostile music is cathartic, and fiendish communiqués quench our darkest thoughts – which is where nerve-shredding duo Sutekh Hexen enters the frame.
Sutekh Hexen are architects of the unknown, constructing houses of the unholy, and while they’re based in Oakland, California, the band’s aural assaults operate on a more esoteric plane of existence. Sutekh Hexen combine ambient crawls and harsh noise with drone and raw black metal, and their unearthly music is reliably arcane and abrasive. Imagine a delirious fusion of Sunn O)))’s Black One and Lustmord’s darkest explorations as a starting point, and then dig ever deeper into sulfurous catacombs of sense-shattering tenebrosity. That’s somewhat close to Sutekh Hexen’s mode of mining terrors beyond belief, and the band’s recent self-titled album is replete with ear-splitting horrors.
Sutekh Hexen’s new release is touted as their “first proper studio” album, but the band have been prolific dealers of corruptive noise before now. Over the past decade, Sutekh Hexen have released a series of demos, EPs, splits, and more comprehensive releases via a number of underground labels, and their latest eponymous album is being released by noted misanthropes Sentient Ruin Laboratories.
A decade into their career, Sutekh Hexen show no sign of creative fatigue, and their aesthetic strengths and ability to erect temples of transgression are still markedly unnerving. The 10 tracks on Sutekh Hexen certainly show plenty of inhuman muscle while wrenching the gates of Hell open wider than ever. Sutekh Hexen have previously spoken of their interest in trespassing boundaries and distorting thresholds, and new tracks, like “Descent”, “Eye of the Quill”, and unsettling drone “SubStratus”, encapsulate those ideals while being hypnotic and harrowing in both tone and texture.
Pyres of static and filth-lashed noise hiss and clatter throughout Sutekh Hexen, and the band’s defiant music sounds both profound and profane. Tracks like “Segue I: Ouroborus”, “Segue II: Xirang” and “Segue III: Ascent” exist as calmer soundscapes, albeit no less surreal and corrosive, with their tension-ratcheting instrumentation amplifying Sutekh Hexen’s haunting atmospherics.
Elsewhere, “Torrential” is a viscerally intense deluge of disorientating blackened noise, where every piece of vile and venomous artillery in Sutekh Hexen’s armory is unleashed in a cacophonous onslaught. The band do a magnificent job of scraping the most odious and blood-curdling tar from the depths of their caustic creative storehouse. But Sutekh Hexen also know how to gnaw at your anxieties with eerie subtlety. “Pangea Ultima” is a perfect example of that. The track ends Sutekh Hexen on a foreboding note, with threads of grim and gloom-ridden drone dissipating in the murk and mist.
Overall, Sutekh Hexen is as ominous and cryptic as you’d expect, and Sutekh Hexen conjure an uneasy ambience throughout. There’s a lot of pleasure to be found immersing yourself in the band’s world of abject horrors and the ruthless deconstruction of their music plays just as an important role as the building of intimidating steeples of noise.
As always, Sutekh Hexen’s labyrinthine prayers are both meditative and murderous. Audio nightmares leech minimal and maximal chills, and the band’s enveloping tracks exhibit sickening levels of dread as well as an abhorrent sense of awe.
Sutekh Hexen feels fathomless as abyss-bound songs drag you into the darkest pits. But the album also feels infinite as black holes of soul-splintering noise tear reality asunder. Sutekh Hexen remain a mystery and a contradiction, and while Sutekh Hexen is unquestionably disturbing, it’s also sinisterly seductive. Sutekh Hexen's subversive and insidious genius is palpable on their latest release. As is the sadistic glee they experience wreaking havoc on our minds.