PRIMEVAL

2. January 2025

SUTEKH HEXEN at the core has conducted experimental black metal deconstructionism from the blight of the Bay Area, and depending on conceptual framework, with a global cast of high-calibre talented collaborators for over 14 years. Initially (and anonymously) SUTEKH HEXEN took the underground by storm with a trio of very limited demo tapes utilizing their distinctive unification of raw atmospheric black metal with scathing noise electronics, heavy textural anti-rhythms, dark ambient expanse and unsettling vocals. And with each consecutive release the concepts, production and dynamics became more elaborate without compromising their foundation.

However with this latest offering, ‘Primeval’, the magisterial sonic-alchemists present a rather dramatic focus, reembodying their trajectory from another angle of the point; still haunting and immersing the listener in an eerily familiar space: their space…

Recorded on location in the majestic (darkness) of the redwood forests, decaying WWII era bunkers and a light-soaked wooden chapel on the west coast in California and Oregon, to the northeastern haunted pastures of the first American witch trials in New England, the urban brutalism of Berlin, to the glorious and ancient caverns deep within the French Pyrenees.

SUTEKH HEXEN have undeniably pushed and progressed boundaries once again. ‘Primeval’ can be considered their most authentic, cinematic and polarizing album to date. With these 8 tracks of base elemental transmutations, utilizing arrangements of exclusively acoustic instrumentation and other non-electric methods of sound generation via: acoustic strings (guitars, viola, violin), percussion: (metal, stone, wooden objects, timpani), wind: (pipe organ and open-air orations) resulting in their brightest recorded material …casting the darkest shadow.

The journey begins with ‘Malediction’ a plodding processional piece appropriately setting the tone, ‘Severed & Sealed’ immediately draws upon menacing abstraction via ghastly fragmented chamber movements and disembodied glossolalia, ‘River of Shadows’ the immortal wind and pulse, serves early as the brief, melodic and moody centerpiece of this album, ‘Moss Skull’ ushers the listener within temple stasis: guiding one further toward infinite, ‘Pyre’ embraces despair and triumph through bombastic discernment, ‘Orædjinn’ evokes the tangible and intangible through grand surreal chapel pipe organ and dense overtones of 100% analog harsh noise wall and powerful incantations, worshipping at the altar of beauty + brutality, ‘Cavern Rite’ clears the cast circle, contemplating the mysteries and intention through our own hands, ‘The Clarion Call’ thus closes the album, perhaps this is the end or maybe the beginning?

The theme has now closed full circle, were you (t)here?