Vetrans Otargos land on our greedy laps a fourth album released by Underground Activists/SOM that can only be described as stunning! Following the not so easy trend to bastardize Black Metal with all sorts of dark influences seems the French band’s biggest talent, as the 10 tracks spiral venomously from the most asphyxiating doom to the most blood-chilling industrial like they had it everyday for breakfast. As if it were not enough, their spitefully deadpan black metal gets the death/heavy metal treatment too, in case their mad concoctions were not sufficiently evil. Eclectic, yes, but measured to perfection by skilled sonic alchemy, an array of gripping vocals and, clearly, a vision. In fact it is precisely this vision that makes them stand out amongst the (albeit not many) avant-garde black metal bands: take a look at the title again.
No God, No Satan is simply the best slogan ever to come out since the individuality-affirming No Gods, No Masters by 80’s seminal crust/doom metal heroes Amebix. I have always wondered why on earth someone who is intelligent enough to reject the idea of a God would instead happily accept that of Satan, when the latter is blatantly an invention (sorry, one of the inventions) of those despicably false Judeo-Christian religions that have been plaguing human life for so many centuries… So I welcome with particular joy the brilliant and engagingly complex music of Otargos, as their message is actually current and, for once, quite serious! Long live Illuminism: science (when untouched by greed) is and has always been humanity’s only saving grace, so it is befitting that a genre like avant-garde black metal should foster for once ideas that are rational and logical, as the spiritual path of each of us only makes sense if it engages with reality, not fantasy. (AlexMF)
