After two acclaimed albums Xasthur return with their Napalm/Moribund debut. Telepathic With the Deceased is isolated visionary Malefic?s darkest jewel yet, culminating his clandestine efforts into an hour-long voyage deep ... more »within his distorted psyche. Spanning icy sojourns to decaying ambience to paralyzing funeral doom, Malefic brings his horrific visions to you. Beware! You may already be Telepathic... "The black metal equivalent to a Sergio Leone epic masterpiece film! This album is not of this world..." Bruni/BW&BK« less
After two acclaimed albums Xasthur return with their Napalm/Moribund debut. Telepathic With the Deceased is isolated visionary Malefic?s darkest jewel yet, culminating his clandestine efforts into an hour-long voyage deep within his distorted psyche. Spanning icy sojourns to decaying ambience to paralyzing funeral doom, Malefic brings his horrific visions to you. Beware! You may already be Telepathic... "The black metal equivalent to a Sergio Leone epic masterpiece film! This album is not of this world..." Bruni/BW&BK
The best Burzum tribute band that doesn't play any Burzum
Chet Fakir | DC | 04/21/2005
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Cold, frozen, black metal with distorted indecipherable vokills very reminicent of everyone's favorite pagan nutjob Varg Vikernes of Burzum. And like Burzum the guitars are distorted to a wash of fuzzy multilayered distortion, the drums plod and pummel, and keyboards add simple yet very atmospheric and ambient touches. In fact several of the songs are effective ambient electronica, for example the album opener "Entrance Into Nothingness". A few songs on this album are fast, but most are at a black-ice glacial pace. And despite being very influenced by Burzum, Graveland and the necro sound of early Norwegian black metal, this album is quite good, ie it's atmospheric, emotional, grim, and even frightening at times. It does what black metal is supposed to do very well. Xasthur bring something of their own to the table in what can be a limited and limiting genre, especially these days. Telepathic With the Deceased is chillingly evil and as another reviewer said, beautiful."
Douglas Hernandez | 09/04/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Xasthur's music isn't for everyone. Production values and accesible musical structures are thrown out the window in favor of primitive passages and ultra-depressive funeral dirges. Through chaos and perversity, a vision of nihilism and total annihilation for everything that stands for good is quite easily achieved. After a brief eerie intro, the carnage begins in the form of repetitive guitar interludes, and strained vocals. The drums and vocals might sound a little too buried in the background, but they only help the guitars spew their mournful laments up front over everything else, which is fitting seeing how this record mostly focuses on atmosphere. While there's some good partially fast tracks in here, I feel Xasthur are more lethal and effective at its slowest. It is when the sentiments of sorrow and grimness come across more predominantly. It is a pleasure to see that in thia age and day bands are still producing black metal of the highest caliber devoid of any outside influence or irrelevant progression. It doesn't really surprise me to see that Xasthur is quickly becoming a cult act of sorts within the black metal underground circles."
The Darkest Place
D. C. Bowden | Vermont mountains | 11/16/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Xasthur's music I have found to be almost the darkest possible place one can "go" with music. The overall sound of this album (I have the LP version), the sense of space therein, with the fuzzy guitars and distant screeching vocals, is almost unique in the genre of black metal. I applaud Amazon's effort to provide samples of tracks, but I still think black metal is a genre best experienced as complete albums, not a track here or there, and certainly not in low bit-rate, 30 second pieces (which can be ample for radio pop music).
Thus I encourage you to buy this CD, or LP if you can find it. If you're reading this review, you must have at least some interest in black metal to have found this item. The production will be considered horrid by some standards, but, in my opinion, it's part of the experience and works perfectly; these songs wouldn't have near the effect if everything was crystal clear.
I encourage you to seek Xasthur's even newer album called "To Violate the Oblivious". Thanks for your time, good day."
Yeesh.
HeavyGuitarSunn | 03/02/2006
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Psychedelic black metal. The black metal equivalent of shoegazer metal or rock: piles of distorted guitars burying a broken, pained voice. This makes My Bloody Valentine, Jesus and Mary Chain, and the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club seem like happy, upbeat, toe-tapping fun. Which, coincidentally, most of it is.
This album is no fun. But it is spectacular, atmospheric, and adventurous. Remarkable stuff."
Malefic's most experimental work
Internal Abbatoir | Albuquerque, NM | 02/25/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Telepathic with the Deceased was met with a lot of criticism when it was first released. Many people argue that this album was rushed along with its counterpart, To Violate the Oblivious, and that it wasn't as memorable as past releases. To be frank, I don't think there is anything wrong with putting out a lot of material. Malefic has a lot of time to record. He is not touring the country. He is sitting in his house in sunny California and harvesting the hatred inside of himself. What is so wrong with that? Ultimately, I think Malefic has improved as a producer. For one thing, this album seems to be pretty well produced (I guess, for Xasthur). It may not be quite as good as To Violate the Oblivious, but it sure is better than the muddy sound of The Funeral of Being. Of course, trve black metallers don't consider that kvlt enough... but it gives Xasthur a shimmering quality that would have been nonexistent otherwise...
Honestly, this is a good album. I can see why most black metal fans don't like it, though. It is actually less metal than Xasthur's past releases. Of course, it is still black metal, but this music is more experimental and leans more towards mood than anything else. This release truly shows the ability Malefic has to get some incredible sounding tones out of his guitar, too. And also, of course, the layering of the guitars themselves is phenomenal. Malefic deeply layers his music with harmonies/disharmonies, clean arpeggios, and fuzz. The results are truly bizarre and almost art rock sounding. It is definitely something you wouldn't expect from black metal...
This is better than most black metal. It stands out as something else rather than another Darkthrone rip off, which is good enough for me."
Track Listings (10) - Disc #1
