Osculum Serpentis – The Streams of Sorrow

Damn Kyūketsuki – because of it and the review on these pages recently I got side tracked into listening to the music from Chu Ishikawa instead of Metal music. I’d better focus on the new Osculum Serpentis album – the bloodsucking vampiric raw Black Metal project by the French multi-disciplinary artist Maxime André Taccardi, aka ‘Vipera.’ It’s a deeply personal and experimental venture, this project of his, which blends music, visual arts, and poetry into a singular, unsettling experience.

At VM-Underground we can only focus on the music. Baptized in blood in 2022, Osculum Serpentis quickly carved out a niche with its unique theatrical and musical style.

The album cover, a blood painting depicting Castle Bran and a winged vampire., is appositely made by the master himself.

Those familiar with the music of Osculum Serpentis know this is no pseudo goth Black Metal approach à la Cradle of Filth – Nonono: it’s a raw cacophony of dark and barbaric soundscapes, insane ritualistic drumming on molded skulls and multiple layers of chainsaw guitars, thundering bass, eerie cinematic horror sounds and on top of all that the echoing and commanding, sometimes solemn, vocals of Vipera. Theatrical? Maybe. But not like a Death SS, a Mayhem or a Rammstein with feigned bombast. Vipera sucks at the jugular of the LLN, people: Moëvot, Mütiilation,… It’s amazing how such primitive musical influences can be merged with ambient music and still remain fukkin’ extreme.

‘Dominus Satanā (Introduction)’ is the obligatory cinematic overture with tympani, Dolby Surround® broad synth strings and uncanny vampire shrieks and with ‘I spit on the Cross’ we’re set for a voyage into Transylvania. The album appears to be way more linear in sound, more violent than usual and even spartan when it comes to the instrumentations. Or maybe the production is more coherent than on the previous releases. Dark mayhem simply drips from this album. Incredible.

As usual, everything fits perfectly like an insane jigsaw. And as the pieces fall into place the musical tale of the vampire Vipera is revealed. Darkness is being draped in thick curtains and veiled from the light on ‘The Streams Of Sorrow’ – only the red eyes of the vampire offer guidance on this one.

Another highlight is ‘Mă Lepăd De Dumnezeu’ (translates as ‘I renounce God’) a nerve-wracking ambient and slower cut on the album. Every Osculum has one, but this one is very unsettling. ‘The Ruins of My Soul’ is the pièce de resistance- a 14-minute LLN inspired calvary/unholy anti-Christian crusade. And is that orthodox chanting I hear? Laibach couldn’t have done it any better. It’s so intense, it totally drains you.

Priests, nuns, vampires, holy water, crosses and parsons – ‘Across the Land of Sorrow’ is yet another feral masterpiece of dark ambient/industrial laced raw Black Metal.

The ethereal outro ‘The Morbid Count’, is a blossoming crimson rose making this 44-minute opus fade out in the morning mist.

An essential release which every fan of raw Black Metal with half a brain must examine! As far as I’m concerned this should have been a 3 hour Black Metal opera – in a perfect world…

Essential!