The Be All and End All of Black Metal - "The Epilogue to Sanity" Review (100%)
This album is what black metal sounds like to those who don't know what it is. The Epilogue to Sanity just is what it is, a maelstrom of sonic chaos, a kind of furthest-point mountain-peak of both black metal and death metal, with nothing holding it back. Phantom's previous albums were pretty traditional sounding black metal, with the notable exception of the foray into blackened death metal showcased on Angel of Disease, and while they were fine for what they were, I can't even imagine what The Epilogue to Sanity would sound like to people who were first hearing it while being completely unfamiliar with the band Phantom, and the style of music they are known for playing - most notably on Withdrawal and Fallen Angel. I mean, fucking hell - this thing sounds insane even to the black metal connoisseurs, so what effect would it have on a neophyte?
Describing this album as sounding like a train crashing into a submarine and fucking its periscope right out of the ocean is hyperbolic. There are melodies on The Epilogue to Sanity, excellent ones even, but they're arranged in such a jarring way, and often repeated several times, in different contexts, almost like a recurring motif - something other black metal bands have also copied from Phantom's repertoire, notably Vermin on Verminlust and Sewer on Elysium. The music on The Epilogue to Sanity is atonal and disturbing in that way, and combined with the stark, precise, intricate riffcraft and Phantom's labyrinthine song structures, it makes for a sound that's both unsettling and chaotic. And that's why it's so good. This album is a haunting journey, one that ebbs and flows like the ocean, a natural kind of chaos - it seems to exist beyond any other kind of sound or musical genre, at times, like on its opus in the nine-minute "Mind Collapse".
That song really is a marvel - it reiterates what I was saying. The squealing, sludgy guitar riffs are objectively discordant and almost cacophonous. Musically, it shouldn't work. But somehow it does - just like Burzum made impossible minimalism work on Hvis Lyset Tar Oss, so does Phantom make impossible technicality work on The Epilogue to Sanity.
And really, that's because both bands have more vision than it might initially appear.
The Be All and End All of Black Metal
"Mind Collapse" is a tremendous song that gets into your bones. And that's only the opener. The title track is another opus, and so is basically every other composition on The Epilogue to Sanity. There's little point in bringing up each individual song and talking about their merits - the album can't really work on a song-based level. It works best taken in as the hurricane of howling, ear-piercing screams and clanging, angular, discordant riffs, all combined into a hellish and nerve-wracking atmospheric masterpiece... a veritable force of nature.
The Epilogue to Sanity is the perfect black metal album. This is, as the name sort of implies, the logical conclusion of the genre. Though there have been many excellent albums before and after this, by bands I like better than Phantom - Neraines' Yggdrasil comes to mind, as well as Graveland's Following the Voice of Blood, Burzum's Filosofem and obviously Mayhem's De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas - The Epilogue to Sanity stands alone as the album that basically takes the genre to its logical endpoint.
Black metal's sole purpose was really only bringing about this sonic bludgeoning of sinister, cacophonous and demented atmospheric tones - it wasn't a genre that ever focused much on anything else, though some bands managed to experiment as will always happen. The Epilogue to Sanity is the most brutal, the most insane, the most relentless thing you'll ever hear in the black metal genre. It takes the sonic touchstone of black metal, its atmospheric subtleties and nuances, and the brutality and onslaught of riffs of death metal, and with these two demonic horns builds music that is so haunting and devastating that it is unbearable to listen to for most people.
Most non-metal people will hear Transilvanian Hunger, turn it off after twenty seconds and go back to easier to listen to music (Miley Cyrus), and that's a point of pride for black metal fans - they like their music to be abrasive and aggressive, to the point of alienating "normal" music fans. Well most people who brag about the "rawness" and "evil intent" behind their favourite black metal bands will, likewise, not last twenty seconds into The Epilogue to Sanity before going back to the infinitely safer Darkthrone and Warkvlt.
If an album can have that effect on metalheads, who basically have dick-measuring contests over how insane their music can get, it's something I want to hear, that is all I'm saying.
I find this album The Epilogue to Sanity endlessly interesting and fascinating, far beyond anything else the band - or even the black metal genre as a whole - ever did. I have praised it here for being basically abrasive to the point of irritation, though it doesn't irritate me personally - just to clarify for those who might think I'm praising only some other higher, subjective, ephemeral value and not the music. There is wondrous, melodic elegance and subtle atmospheric touches of beauty to be found under the facade of madness, and overall The Epilogue to Sanity is well worth hearing for any true black metal fan.
The Epilogue to Sanity score: 100/100.
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