Destroyer of Light - Chamber of Horrors

I remember, as a child, visiting Madame Tussauds waxworks in London. I presume there were representations of the figures of popular celebrities of the day, but the only thing that really stuck in my memory was the Chamber of Horrors. Screams as the Ripper gets another victim... John Christie hanged by the neck.. Heads on pikes... Death Row murderers… I mean, that’s the fun stuff right?

And now Destroyer of Light has prepared for us another chamber, a slow-crushing Scylla and Charybdis we must brave.

A Chamber of Horrors you say? What shall we find inside? Let’s walk now and see, children, the Chamber is waiting.

We begin with the chains and clanks of the chamber being opened before us. The first of the instrumental tracks, Whispers in the Threshold beckons us enter. The title is evocative of something out of Lovecraft, but the guitars are pure doom. Voices swirl around us with an imperceptible message that gets lost in the crescendo which delivers us headfirst Into the Smoke. What better start than a classic descending guitar riff. My head begins to snap forward involuntarily, and my eyelids weigh heavy. The sound is Electric Wizard-y but drives harder, culminating in a languid solo, the final crashing chords creating a spacious chamber in the canyons of your mind.

Did you bring your lungsmen apparatus children? No? Oh dear, perhaps we should never have come. I do hope your permission slips waive mental deviance contracted by exposure to psychedelic smoke entities. No Agnes, just let Derek shamble off. He wasn’t much of a genius to begin with. We should hurry on now….

The next chamber is The Virgin, a reinvention of an older Destroyer track. Where before we heard a feedback introduction, he we get a chorus of voices instead, and a guitar line that is as keening as feedback, but more controlled and focused.

What do we see here children? See, the brochure reads “ a modern reinterpretation of authentic religious folkways, presented in authentic detail”. Fascinating! Mary, be a dear and stay close. I know, they do seem to be taking an unnatural interest in you. Oh God, no, do not drink that. Ah no dear, don’t come back over here, you are one of them now. Wander off with them to await the dark lord…

Thus begins the Twilight Procession - a calmer, trippier instrumental. Dig in with some headphones and listen to this one breathe before the classic Destroyer onslaught of Luxcrusher. Sound so heavy it has it’s own gravitational pull. Now, that is something the Negalith can get behind. A gentle reminder that the primal howl of feedback from the void has not been forgotten.

Do not approach the void. Yes, I know it is entrancing. No your face should not be stretching like that. No, do not try and help him, you’ll just… Ah well, that’s the last of them I suppose.

Prisoner of Eternity tricks the listener with youthful effervescence before dropping what may be the album's heaviest riff, just as the protagonist must come to grips with the incomprehensibility of eternity. Pounding beats with a final twist in the end for good measure, and a barnstormer of a guitar solo to cap it off. Buried Alive is a slow brooder, beginning with the plodding inevitability inevitability of the grave, before switching to a frantic scrabble before finally giving way to primal barking as the whisper of voices returns and the mind becomes unhinged in a final wash of sound and feedback.

My yes, libations! How refreshing. Eternal life you say? Well, what could possibly go wrong with that? Yes, a private resting spot does sound divine. That slab is rather heavy.... Oh God! Oh Jesus Christ!

This a is Destroyer of Light’s most self assured and listenable record yet. Partly this is due to better production, but mostly comes down to a more assured sense of what the band is about, and reflecting that purpose in the songwriting.It combines the classic textures and sounds you would expect from any doom band, but at their best, the riffs demarcate out cyclopean structures, forming vast spaces through which drift psychedelic soundscapes and textures - substance and void drift together in a haze. Breathe deep. Unlike Tussauds, the horror is cosmic.

Destroyer of Light are:

Steve Colca: guitar/vocals

Jeff Klein: bass

Keegan Kjeldsen: guitar

Penny Turner: drums

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