Devotee is a project from 2018 that I did four albums with, all in the same year. My music is often an outlet for, and a reflection of, a lot of emotions, trouble, and spiritual fluctuations that I may be going through at any particular period of time.
Devotee is no different, in this regard, tagged as 'Hipster Black Metal,' for the lulz of it.
Spiritually, my disenchantment with Christianity was reaching an apex following three years of uncertainty, doubt, and speculations causing me to research avenues of comparative-religious study with which I was not previously familiar. This really deserves its own post, but just to give an idea of what I was going through with these projects/albums.
Within the music, aesthetic, and imagery of Devotee's first two albums, influences can be detected from Left-Handed Islamic ideation, gnostic glorifying of the Demiurge (reverse-Gnosticism), and Pre-Islamic Paganism.
"Sacred Visions" is full of raw hymns to the Demiurge. The idea behind this was a backwards approach to early/medieval Christian Gnosticism, where it was proposed that the god of the Old Testament was the Demiurge, unworthy of worship, and identifiable as "Satan."
My reasoning was that, were this true (by their own logic), then worshipping the Abrahamic God was akin to devil worship. Sarcastically then, I devised "Sacred Visions" as a rejection of this concept, which in turn promoted a 'Left-handed' interpretation of what would otherwise have been seen as a 'Right-handed' one.
Simply put, I flipped it on 'em.
"Faith of the Ancients," is probably my favorite Devotee album. The final production might not be great, but I purposely left it as it was because the mastering tools at my disposal took something away from the music, while still giving it a 'fuller' sound.
Since I don't know what I'm doing (learning as I go, with obsolete equipent), I just left it raw, and I think it sounds better that way.
(the first two)
Within the music, aesthetic, and imagery of Devotee's first two albums, influences can be detected from Left-Handed Islamic ideation, gnostic glorifying of the Demiurge (reverse-Gnosticism), and Pre-Islamic Paganism.
"Sacred Visions" is full of raw hymns to the Demiurge. The idea behind this was a backwards approach to early/medieval Christian Gnosticism, where it was proposed that the god of the Old Testament was the Demiurge, unworthy of worship, and identifiable as "Satan."
My reasoning was that, were this true (by their own logic), then worshipping the Abrahamic God was akin to devil worship. Sarcastically then, I devised "Sacred Visions" as a rejection of this concept, which in turn promoted a 'Left-handed' interpretation of what would otherwise have been seen as a 'Right-handed' one.
Simply put, I flipped it on 'em.
"Faith of the Ancients," is probably my favorite Devotee album. The final production might not be great, but I purposely left it as it was because the mastering tools at my disposal took something away from the music, while still giving it a 'fuller' sound.
Since I don't know what I'm doing (learning as I go, with obsolete equipent), I just left it raw, and I think it sounds better that way.
(the last two)
Things take a sharp turn to the left (no pun intended) with the release of "Grey Metal," which almost shares more common territory with Noise music. Catastrophically atonal, fraught throughout with dense, relentless anxiety, and suffocating esoterism, it is probably uneasy listening.
The closest comparison that comes to mind is if you had Blut Aus Nord's "Mort" attempting to interpret Leviathan's "The First Sublevel of Suicide." Whether or not this is apparent to anyone else, or only in my personal sense of delusion, I have no idea."Grey Metal," ideologically is meant as an excercise in balance between Right-hand and Left-hand, with regard to spiritual practice. It is a merging of the two realms (throwing accusations of heresy to the wind), and an audial example of how this feels to me, due to what I was experiencing at the time personally (anxiety, health issues, habitual drinking, spiritual conundrum causing synthetic syncretism, emotional imbalance seeking equilibrium, among other things).
It is what happens when you mix Christianity with it's opposite, through a bridge of Islam. The (only temporary) grey limbo that ensues is captured on this release. It's a necessary, albeit uncomfortable stop on one's journey toward truth and understanding.
"Second Blood," is the ironically titled fourth album. This album has more obvious punk influences, and there's even a 'Black Metal Reggae' song. The alcohol was flowing free on this album, evident in its Punk Rock nihilism, and it's "idgaf" ethos. The vocals are mixed way too loud, of warbled, drunken ramblings and urgent nonsense are screeched into the void.
Strangely, this album has seen more popularity and success than the others, I think.
Download at 'Name Your Price' on Bandcamp (free or donation):
Mediafire links:
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