Ultar
Kadath
(Temple of Torturous)
Sometimes it seems as though evocations of the great horror author, Howard Phillips Lovecraft are as ubiquitous in heavy music is blood, cobwebs and witches.
But listeners must ask the question, is the album genuinely “Lovecraftian”?
Ultar’s band name references a fictional town and a fictional deity famous from the short story The Cats of Ulthar and in a greater sense, Lovecraft’s Dream Cycle. In stories, Ultar exists beyond the River Skai and each of the song titles from the Siberian band refers to a pantheon of elder gods, canonical story titles and some of the teeming creepy things from the yellowed pages of lore.
The nod to the horror author begs the obvious question, are albums like Kadath actually inspired by, and relevant to, the Lovecraft experience? Or, is the use of that imagery and nomenclature akin to a baseball team wearing a throwback uniform: stylish, appropriate, but oddly discordant with the actual present moment. It’s 1959, whether or not the uniform is stitched in such a way. Beer is still eight bucks.
After numerous spins through the six-track album, the answers to my questions remain glaringly unanswered and I’m well versed in all things pertaining to the Providence writer. I enjoyed Kadath on the merits of its well-orchestrated musicality and use of an array of wintery tones. The band writes ambitious black metal songs, built around spacious intro and outro moments that are successful in drumming up mood, dank ambiance punched up with a rain of savage guitars and a raspy vocal screech that can wake hell. But I continue to circle around to concept, because that’s where this album suggests my attentions divert. Lovecraft wanted others to play in his creepy cavernous imagination; it isn’t the inclusion that puzzles me, it’s more the unnecessary allusion that does. And perhaps then the joke is on me, because had these songs been called anything else, I would feel wholly different and tell you, hey, this band rocks.
