Weekly album: Volahn / Arizmenda / Kallathon / Shataan - Desert Dances and Serpent Sermons

Volahn / Arizmenda / Kallathon / Shataan - Desert Dances and Serpent Sermons

2015 / Black metal

1. Volahn - Chamalcan

2.Shataan - Caminando del Destino / Desert Smoke / Wells Run Dry

3. Arizmenda - Ropeburn Mutilation on the Outskirts of Life

4. Kallathon - Falling into the Horizon, Burning into the Black Twilight

btcarey: “Desert Dances and Serpent Sermons” is a split album comprised of four artists, each featuring their own song and perspective of the up-and-coming subgenre “western black metal”. The genre may not be entirely “new”, since some of the founding bands are several years old. “Desert Dances and Serpent Sermons” is truly the redefined and perfected version of what nuances of western black metal there were prior, making it the benchmark for future bands to come.

A lot of you are probably thinking, “What the hell is ‘Western Black Metal’?” Since the genre and this album are definitive of each other I can discuss both simultaneously. Western black metal is somewhat similar to how it sounds, yet encompasses much more than just black metal and old American Western’s soundtracks. The genre takes influence from black metal, Native American folk, country, and rock, creating an immense stylistic range that many bands could only hope to accomplish.

 All the bands offer their own distinct style to the album, with each song sounding different yet fit into the overall flow seamlessly. The first track “Chamalcan”, by Volahn has the most obvious western influence; almost feeling like the intro was sampled straight out of a movie. It seems a bit corny but not enough to keep “Chamalcan” from being a great song.

The second track “Caminando del Destino / Desert Smoke / Wells Run Dry” by Shataan, is much more progressively oriented. The use of flute and the organic clean vocals gives the song a raw and atmospheric tone, which is perfectly paired with rock-and-roll guitar riffs.

Arizmenda’s “Ropeburn Mutilation on the Outskirts of Life” is a much more traditional black metal song with even some death metal influenced riffs. It really picks up the pace from the previous song but doesn’t feel out of place in comparison to the rest of the album.

The fourth and final track, “Falling into the Horizon, Burning into the Black Twilight” by Kallathon, seems inspired by Native American folk but has a strong pagan black metal influence as well.

This is a well-crafted and beautifully executed album that offers an innovative perspective of modern black metal.

Favorite Songs: “Falling into the Horizon, Burning into the Black Twilight” and “Caminando del Destino / Desert Smoke / Wells Run Dry”

Orostider: Four bands, four songs. Btcarey told me about this album by describing the album to be

native american cowboy black metal. Intriguing as hell on its own and the wonderful artwork only increased the 'hype.'

The first track belongs to Volahn and it actually fits the genre description given by btcarey quite well. The track occasionally sounds like Muse's Knights of Cydonia with tons of black metal. The black metal elements are mainly from atmospheric black metal, but traditional elements are also present. All in all, 'Chamalcan' is a solid ten minute slab of pretty unique black metal.

Shataan's track 'Caminando Del Destino - Desert Smoke - Wells Run Dry' begins with a pipe utilizing intro which leads to a mid-tempo blast beat part with echoing clean vocals. The clean vocals aren't really done as well as they could have been, but the track compensates the somewhat even awful clean vocals with interesting instrumentation. The flute especially hits the spot for me, but after 'Chamalcan', the track sounds weak and unfortunately, the clean vocals start to sound even more awful due to the frequency of them. Easily the worst track of the split. 

After the first half of the album, it's Arizmenda's turn. The third track of the split is a lot more straightforward black metal than the two tracks before it. After Shataan's clean vocals, the harsh shrieks of Arizmenda actually bring some comfort. The track itself doesn't really differ from averagely good atmospheric-ish black metal songs, but it fits the split pretty well. 

Kallathon finishes the set of four with another song with a calm intro. After almost five minutes, the track launches a pagan black metal influenced song with a groove. The track is absolutely the most fitting one to be the closing song, but it still lacks something. Like Arizmenda's song, Kallathon's song doesn't really manage to separate itself from the vast cluster of black metal bands. The song is a good one, that's not the case, but it would've been a lot better with more uniqueness. 

Favourite song: Volahn - 'Chamalcan'

tp5170: I have to say that this black metal influenced by Native American and cowboy music was a completely new thing for me, but I kind of liked the idea of it. 

The first track ‘Chamalcan’ is maybe the one pressing hardest with the western influences. It’s a complicated track and it has many phases to it, some of which are really good and some of which aren’t. Altogether, it’s an interesting track, but neither the best nor the worst one on this four way split.

The second track ‘Caminando del Destino / Desert Smoke / Wells Run Dry’ is a bit lighter on the black metal influences and focuses on the western influences among other things. Even after a couple of spins, this one didn’t really open up for me and it’s probably the weakest track on the split in my opinion. There are surely some cool elements to be found here, but the overall quality could have simply been better and unfortunately the clean vocals didn’t sound all that great.

‘Ropeburn Mutilation on the Outskirts of Life’ is the name of the third track which offers a more traditional black metal experience. The style of it is slower and at least slightly leaning towards the atmospheric black metal. I enjoyed this track a great deal, because it’s simply well composed and it doesn’t lose its way at any point.

The fourth and last track, ‘Falling into the Horizon, Burning into the Black Twilight’, is also a slightly more traditional black metal track with a great, slower progression curve. It’s a fitting track to end the split with and it managed to keep me on my toes the entire time. 

Favorite songs: ’ Ropeburn Mutilation on the Outskirts of Life’ and ‘Falling into the Horizon, Burning into the Black Twilight’