Sokeus – Ekpyrosis

With the previous demo ‘Immortal Wisdom’, this Finnish band already showed some fascination for ancient beliefs, philosophy and sages. Those themes are embodied again on ‘Ekpyrosis’, the band’s first full-length album. Ekpyrosis is the ancient belief that the world will be destroyed by a devastating fire and then recreated, the palingenesis or recreational rebirth. Plato had already mentioned this and talked about this phenomenon supposedly happening every 36,000 years. But it is also talked about in the Bible. In the Book of Revelations, it mentions the blowing of trumpets, each of which will pour its damnation over the earth: hail and fire mixed with blood, a mountain of fire in the sea and horses with smoke and sulphur from their mouths that will trample on mankind…

This is obviously a perfect backdrop for a Black Metal album. Obviously, this conceptual idea was not pioneered by Sokeus; it is even a frequently cited source of inspiration outside metal or music in general. But that it can lead to interesting art is something that Sokeus also shows us.

Especially with the benefit of being able to look retrospectively, the band’s first demo still sounds a bit tentative and inquisitive, but on ‘Immortal Wisdom’, the second demo tape, we can already hear very clearly the direction Sokeus wants to go. All those loose ideas are expertly fused together on ‘Ekpyrosis’ into a mature debut album. The fairly minimalist and single-picked melody-driven approach, which can also be heard, for instance, in a band like Nihil Invocation or Ieschure, comes across a lot more convincingly on this album, partly due to the good sound. The whole sounds clear but raw enough to convey the strong power of the music.

Thereby, the dynamics on ‘Ekpyrosis’ are a bit deeper and the piercing and sharp melodies are of a more catchy nature. Together, they also provide a stronger contrast to the raw and hoarse vocals. That twilight world between black and white is not necessarily where Sokeus likes to be, the contrasts between the rather fast tempo and the simple melodies, for instance, reflect well the “between hope and fear”-concept. This is further reinforced by the slower and more doomy songs that are mainly towards the end of the album, listen to ‘Revealing The Pathways To Eternity’ for instance, which is an undeniable testament to the song writing skills of this Finnish duo.

Humanity has lived between hope and fear for centuries. Fearing the end of the world in which we will be trampled by sulphur-spitting horses or turned to ashes by rains of fire and blood. Although Plato could not have predicted exactly when the next all-consuming fires will blaze and the Bible does not mention when we will hear the trumpets of doom blaring, at least until then we can appease our fascination with destruction and misanthropy with ‘Ekpyrosis’.