Alkerdeel – Lede
A devil wanders in Hallerbos, its thick, mildewed hair blending with the forest floor. Such devils as this have been ignored for so long, too long, remembered as mere relics of a forgotten time when nature was still a mystery. Like an infectious mosquito man bit into its hide, drawing what life was left there, and reducing it to comic mumming, cards, toys, and candies. Its playful nature, coupled with its evil, was reduced to almost nothingness, while its darker side was exaggerated and turned into a travesty in its own right, creating a symbol of power for the bullied who dress only in black because metal bands so rarely have color shirts. Thus came the new Satan. Satan is everywhere these days, Satan is everything, so says the metal fan. But in the Old World the old demons await, their bite wounds tore open and their essence released to be spread by ravens and rats. The forest can breathe again, Satan can die, if we remember how it used to be. Burn your pentagrams, stop extending the horns, go back to the old ways. Be the new devil, the old devil, bend over, put your anus in the air, and fart in the face of metal, like Alkerdeel with Lede.
I’m goddamn sick of Satan, I’m sick of covers with nuns showing their cleavage, their nipples covered in black-tape upside-down crosses with Satan feeling them up. I’m sick of covers with nuns having sex with Satan and wine getting poured into their genitals, I’m sick of all of it because it’s stupid. Satan isn’t cool like that anymore, he’s been reduced to a joke. The only people who could possibly find any value in music/art like that are just getting into it, and if that’s the case I’ll forgive them, but in about five years I’ll probably have to toss a few fists at your face. Then I’ll go back to listening to Alkerdeel. When I first heard these guys, way back with their release of De Speenzalvinge, I knew there was something different about it, but it was hard to place, and then even harder to grasp. The more I listened to their work, the more clear it became, as well as the fact that few people actually get what they’re doing. That’s why I’m here, sort of, because today I’m at a loss for words.
Lede is honestly the first Alkerdeel release I’ve listened to thoroughly since I reviewed the one mentioned above, and that was years ago, even though I’ve picked at some of their most recent work. Just so you know, they’re part of a Belgium movement known as “plak metal,” which essentially translates to “sticky metal.” The best way to explain it is to just listen to this, which is fine because I can’t find it in relation to any other band. Lede has brought Alkerdeel to the next step in their development. The process has been from fairly traditional black metal, noisy as all hell, but the vocals were what dropped the static veil, delivered as bizarre moans, like a suicide on the brink of finally achieving death. It’s been a long process, but they’ve finally arrived. I’m still trying to grasp this entire “plak” thing and I’ve only found reference to it in reference to Alkerdeel, but let me do my best to explain, which I usually can, but today I’m finding it difficult. Lede combines two vastly different aesthetics, but correctly, which is something I rarely encounter. Lo-fi, raw black metal, all that sort of thing, is easy to accomplish, but adding to that noise rock is incredibly difficult, since both genres have their own reliance on chaos. Combine them too much, and you’re left with a mess, but what Alkerdeel have done is they’ve found an aesthetic to ground it, which was the key. Go back to that art and look at it for a second, because it’s referencing an older type of devilry. The riffs go through from a primordial, furious soup to harsh, blackened thrash with bizarre, and notable bass lines, and that characteristic vocal style that made me such a fan of them years ago. If you’re not familiar with these creepers, this is definitely a good start, but it its only fault is you’ll likely find their previous work inferior, because it seems they’ve finally nailed everything with Lede. If they keep at it like this, Christ, I’ll have even less to say in the future. There’s only so many times I can express my love without becoming terribly redundant.
Written by Stanley Stepanic
Alkerdeel: Lede
ConSouling Sounds
4.8 / 5
