Xothist – Xothist

Giygas is real, and he's using the entity known as Xothist to transmit his essence into our world.

Xothis play a bizarre, uncomfortable mixture of black metal, darkwave, and dark ambient. The first song features these clean guitars that play these slow, disjointed chords before transitioning into these dark ambient keyboards. I must say, those creepy clean guitars remind me of Belketre for some reason. The black metal is no slouch when it comes to creepy strangeness either. It's shrouded in this amorphous cloud of distortion that consumes all it comes across.

The drums are a slow-paced affair, and the double bass creates a murky, muddy foundation. The vocals are of a Xasthurian nature. They're agonized, shrouded in distortion, and sound like the screams of an eldritch horror. The guitars are just as dark and villainous. Some of the riffs have a depressive black metal feel. Other riffs remind me of the LLN. Others have a post-punk vibe to them. Overall, they present a perfect mix of anger, despair, and melody.

Finally, there are the dark ambient sections. The sounds Xothist uses conjure up different things for many people. For me, the dark ambient section on the third track reminds me of an abandoned quarry. The dark ambient section on track four brings to mind an abandoned playground. The grass is dead, the chains on the swing set have rusted away. These dark ambient elements are a perfect reflection of solitude, misery, and decay.

Xothist is the closest thing I've heard to a black metal manifestation of Giygas. It's dark, bizarre, unsettling, and completely incomprehensible. However, I love this band for its inventiveness. They managed to combine black metal with darkwave and dark ambient in a way that is unsettling and doesn't feel out of place or tacked on.