Osculum Serpentis – Maleficia

Shamelessly overlooked by the VM-Underground staff & crew (nobody dared to go more than 2 metres near that thing), almost buried by time and dust and lost for humanity until someone one had the bright idea to call an outsider who knows how to deal with these issues.

‘Maleficia’ – aka evil in its purest form. The first in a line of biblical plagues and torments, conjured up by mastermind/visionary/necromancer/versatile artist Maxime Taccardi. In less than a year he vomited forth 3 full lengths and 2 EP’s full of darkness, vile bestial sounds and a free passage straight through the gateway of hell.

And to hell it is – in a long downward spiral. A slow descent, with maximum suffering guaranteed. Osculum Serpentis, the venomous kiss of the Serpent of old, the Seducer, the Tempter, the Corruptor, the one who is said to have caused the downfall of mankind to its mortal shame, cast out of Paradise and damned to suffer and eventually returning to the dust from which he came.

Little Horn, the Son of Perdition, the Lightbearer. This here is Maxime Taccardi’s representation of raw Black Metal and his homage or tribute to the LLN, Les Légions Noires from France. Vlad Tepes, Torgeist, Mütiilation, Black Murder, etc. For more info and to those who never heard of LLN – I redirect you to the I-net.

Maxime or better: Vipera doesn’t play raw Black Metal. Vipera becomes raw Black Metal – a frightening transformation that embodies the very essence of Black Metal the way it was meant to be in the first place. No shitty and muffled lo-fi sound but a lush dolby surround sound that gushes out filth, pandemonium and hatred – as if hell itself was spilling over.

The obligatory dark intro, the title track: a relentless and furious hammering on empty wooden coffins, empty oil drums and empy skulls for percussion, the hyper kinetic guitars – layers and layers qand … of thick swampy riffing, a filthy down tuned bass rumbling like your bowels after a spicy Indian dish and of course the vocals. The trademark of every Taccardi release.

Vipera uses his voice like an instrument, kinda like Attila Csihar from Mayhem. A multitude of demonic voices, some are ceremonial, some disturbing, some are downright frightening. Choirs of the damned, angels of destruction. You thought the releases from Signal Rex, Black Gangrene or Altare were pretty demented?

Prepare yourself for the real deal.

When I turned up the volume all lightbulbs exploded in the house. ‘Maleficia’ is sheer diabolic Black Metal extravanganza with dark ambient atmospheres and creepy cinematic back- to-back music. Not one human sound from the outside world manages to get in once the playback starts. You’re imprisoned in your own torture chamber and left to the sadistic “mercy” of Vipera.

It’s a baffling 41 minutes long oredeal of barbaric, apocalyptic cranial drilling, suffocating and primitive animalistic Black Metal lunacy like a rusty saw going through your cranial section. A sensory overload for the ears and for the brain. Swelling and retreating, pulsating, returning to dish out some more violence – but always omnipresent.

It may sound simplistic at first but even with a minimal attention span ‘Maleficia’ can cause serious damage to your mental health and neural pathways.

I think I even blacked out at one point.

Noteworthy: ‘der Zorn Gottes’ with a soundbyte by actor/hellraiser/raging maniac Klaus Kinski, taken from the ‘Aguirre, the Wrath of God’ 1972 movie by director Werner Herzog.

Those Spanish conquistadores were really on a roll back then. Soundtrack by Popol Vuh. Herzog and Kinski – it’s like me versus our Chief-Editor/Owner/Kick Toy at times. …Poor bastard…

Next time – ‘The Devils’ from Ken Russell (1971) Maxime? Or some ‘Altered States’ from 1980?

Osculum Serpentis’ ‘Malefica’ is the musical equivalent of: the infamous French Légions Noires on PCP, Mexican Herxsebet on XTC and Swedish lunatics Abruptum on Peyote. You catch my drift. Words simply cannot describe this mayhem.

Feeling destructive, reckless or just plain fukkin’ curious? Proceed at your own risk.

I’m sold – so leave me be.

And will someone PLEASE release these gems on a proper physical sound carrier?!