Ptahil
Ortus
7.5
The opening measure of "The Infinite TRUTH of the WORD of GOD Is Translated By Corrupt Fallen Men" is the aural equivalent of having one's feet sawed off by someone not quite sober enough to get the job done cleanly: it's painfully jarring, utterly crude and, of course, obscenely uncomfortable to endure. The tune (ahem) "settles" by its 3-minute mark and charges forward for 2 minutes of customary black metal blistering 'n' flailing, but still doesn't fully let go of that "grating sense" decreed at the birth of this wobbly-kneed tune until it crosses the 5-minute midpoint. The last half hammers the brakes with a long stretch of "post/progressive" off-kilter blackness steeped in Deathspell Omegan glory that moderately tones down the haranguing howls of a man being stretched on The Rack in a dank cellar in favor of bits of spoken word and loads of dark, damning mumbles.
Welcome to the profane world of Fort Wayne's Ptahil.
Likely the only other thing black metallers need to know in order to determine interest level here is the fact that this project is born on the wings of one of the corrupt minds behind the obscenely vulgar Typhus -- a band that cut their teeth in the scene with a record packed to the gills with unhallowed bawdiness that made most Deicide lyrics read like a flowering Raffi tune. This particular 2-song/30-minute peek at what's to come from this project continues the howling blasphemies, but as you hopefully gathered from my description of the EP's first tune, Ortus is less "straightforward" in its defilement when compared to what was delivered on Typhus' Profound Blasphemous Proclamation.
The second cut from Ortus, "Dies Iræ! Dies Illa! Solvet Sæclum In Favilla!," shows a different, more comatose side to the Ptahil coin. Where "The Infinite TRUTH..." does a commendable job of mixing up flavors throughout its 10 minutes, the second track devotes itself to a very lengthy, "persistent" canticle intended to provide listeners with a means to "meditate upon the end of days and annihilation of all life." The first 15-minutes remains dead-center on course with the same funereal pace, repeated riff pattern and similarly racked vocal approach peppered with buried ghostly chants, but the mood ultimately speeds off for a minute's worth of sickly, discordant carving before the EP's chunkiest riff pulls the reigns in yet again to bring the song full circle and back to its original dirge-like gait.
While I'll admit I prefer the variance and heavier emphasis on discomfort displayed on "The Infinite TRUTH...," the entire heinous atmosphere stirred by this EP paints a rather promising picture for those who find pleasure in rankling, iniquitous extreme music. And at a mere 7 clams (plus shipping) to your doorstep, I'd certainly say this is worthy of further investigation. Ortus is an impressive exercise in negativity from yet another über-unhallowed US black metal project.
