Chaos Moon is a one-man black metal outfit by multi-instrumentalist Alex “Esoterica” Poole, who’s been releasing a fair amount of releases since 2004, most notably the two critically well-received full-length releases Origin Of Apparition and Languor Into Echoes, Beyond. In 2011 Alex decided to put Chaos Moon to rest and focus on other projects Esoterica and Lithotome besides joining fellow black metal collective Krieg on guitar. But, for some reason he decided to rebirth Chaos Moon in 2013, which resulted in the release of the third Chaos Moon full-length, aptly named Resurrection Extract. Why Alex decided to bring Chaos Moon back to life is not known to me, but I’m very happy he did as Resurrection Extract gives a masterclass in atmospheric black metal, which makes me think he needed the world to show how it’s really done with the huge number of bands making this genre of music these days, or at least incorporating various blackened elements in their music.
It has always intrigued me that some of the best black metal releases are done by just one person making all the music. It provides the ideas and thoughts of just one person and it must give the artist a huge sense of freedom writing and recording songs without trying to please other band members. It does sometimes result in very demo-like sounding releases, very raw with that “bedroom recording” feel to it. I don’t know the details of the Resurrection Extract recording process, but just focussing on the production, this record is sublime without even touching upon the actual music. Its production is very clear without losing any of the raw black metal feel. All the instruments are clearly in the mix, the drums sound heavy, and the vocals sound great.
So, what about the music? Well there isn’t a bad track among the 9 tracks making up the near 60 minutes of music on Resurrection Extract. What strikes me the most is the huge level of atmosphere that Alex manages to create, almost giving it very hypnotic listening experience. There is a huge variety in tempos and plenty of slower, atmospheric stretches, building up on tension throughout.
Starting with the opening track ‘Seeing Through One I’, which starts quite slow and introduces some beautiful soundscapes thereby working as the perfect warming up song to what is to come. If you don’t know any better this opening track could confuse you with some heavier post-rock band, such is the level of guitar soundscapes over the slower tempo and floating sounding keyboards. But then everything erupts in the second track ‘Bloodfall’, throwing everything at the listener at ones, with huge sounding blast beats and stretches of double bass drum as the foundation for some great sounding guitar shredding and Alex’s gnarly, but heavy, sounding black metal vocals. Importantly, Alex never loses any atmospheric elements in this track, and that’s the red line throughout Resurrection Extract: atmosphere.
‘Dreams Scattered Over An Infinite Mirror’ is a great example of all the elements that make Resurrection Extract such a great release. A huge wall of sound with machine gun sounding blast beats that literally beat you into oblivion, guitars that shred away with that typical black metal sound and on top of that yet again a huge layer of atmosphere, making it very hypnotic indeed. ‘Asemic Weakness’ is something out of a horror movie, creating a very scary atmosphere mostly due to Alex’s more haunting vocals on this track. This track also demonstrates a huge level of tempo variation. ‘Empty Fissure’ adds a lot of melodic parts to the mix as well.
All in all, Resurrection Extract is one of this year’s more interesting black metal releases. I for one am very happy Chaos Moon got another chapter in its life and I hope there will be more to come.
