Posts Tagged ‘Profound Lore Records’

Album of the day: Leviathan – True Traitor, True Whore

Posted on Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011

Lovingly pinched from The Inarguable: If there were to be a book written on black metal’s presence in the US, an entire volume would be dedicated to the works of one Jef Whitehead, better known as the enigmatic Wrest. Between his solo work in Leviathan and Lurker of Chalice as well as his contributions to post-punk band GiftHorse, Sunn O))), and the supergroup Twilight, Whitehead has carved his own special niche in black metal history, filled with countless hours of self-loathing, mystical, hateful music.

Though Leviathan was technically ended in the mid-2000s, some shifty legal work pulled by Moribund Records gave us Massive Conspiracy Against All Life, intended to be Leviathan’s final opus and, since January of this year, Whitehead has been the target of immense hate and prejudice due to an ongoing investigation concerning his then-girlfriend, potentially spelling the end of his music career. Still, he persevered, reviving Leviathan as a vehicle to express his deepest hate, culminating in the brilliant True Traitor, True Whore. After all, Jef Whitehead was betrayed, and that traitor was the truest of whores.

With True Traitor, True Whore, Whitehead has taken Leviathan to new, disgusting, awe inspiring heights. From deep within his churning black hate, TTTW shows Whitehead drawing not only from the scathing, black-as-pitch metal of which he has made for the past thirteen years, but also the gnarly, angular post-punk he had performed with GiftHorse, and even the soaring, atmospheric heights of post-hardcore, maybe not giving Leviathan a new face, but definitely highlighting influences that had lurked just beyond the fuzz throughout Leviathan’s existence.

Continue reading: The Inarguable: Leviathan – “True Traitor, True Whore” (2011) [Profound Lore Records].

Tags: Album of the day, black metal, Jef Whitehead, Leviathan, Profound Lore Records, The Inarguable, True Traitor True Whore, Wrest
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