Canadian guitarist Phil Tougas is hot shit right now. Not only has he served in the past in Vengeful, he currently plays in Serocs, Zealotry and First Fragment. But his main project right along with fellow former First Fragment/ Vengeful  and current Beyond Creation drummer Phil Boucher, now appears to be Cthulu/Lovecraft inspired death metal act, Chthe’ilist. 

Initially, Le Dernier Crépuscule gave me the same vibe as last year’s Cruciamentum album, Charnel Passages,  also on Profound lore: a lot of hype and a lot of positive press and word of mouth from my peers, by ultimately a forgettable album. But I knew I had to stick with this one as it would be a deep, disturbing and draining listen. And I was right.

Initial impressions are rooted in the Finnish 90s scene with Demilich, Demigod Abhorrence, Purtenance, Convulse (early) and even some of the weirdness of the Netherlands’ Phlebotomized. A deep, churning, murky cavernous sound with an almost doomy undercurrent and icky throb that also reminds of a lot of Dark Descents signature releases (Unaussprechlichen Kulten, Auroch, Corpsessed etc), and ironically Dark Descent is doing the vinyl release for this album.  It’s far from the expected clinical tech Canadian sound, though it dies have a bit of a modern Gorguts feel, if modern Gorguts were from Innsmouth.

So now you have some idea of what the band sounds like, I should probably try and describe the songs and the album right? Well, truth be told, this is one of those albums you really need to hear for your self. On headphones. At Night. On Drugs. It relies so much on sickly, moist atmospheres and nauseating undulating riffs, it’s hard to convey. It’s less an album but more a sonic black pool of bubbling unknown horrors and eyeless forms throbbing and pulsing in a mire of filth.

Yeah, it’s got the deep, croaking cavernous vocals (often layered with a gurgling, wet effect) and muddy guitar tone delivering crawling oozing riffs, but that’s a small part of the overall miasma. There’s even a few subtle keyboards adding to the overall horrific effect (“Voidspawn”) and a few moments of somewhat ‘stable’ riffage (“Scriptures Of The Typhlodians”), but for the most part the you get the likes of “The Voices From Beneath the Well” and “Vecoiitn’aphnaat’smaala” (complete with some haunting clean chants), which deliver vast, writhing, murky walls of noise and palpable dread.

That said, the band somehow manages to inject Legend of Zelda themes into their Lovecraftian sound and it does not miss a beat as heard on closer  ‘Tales of the Majora Mythos part 1″ , only highlighting how ambitious and talented Tougas an co are on this creepy, top notch release that will more than likely litter a few 2016 year end lists.

[Visit the band's website]

---

Comments