Blasted blues carved from a conceptual monolith that might well be
David Tibet's most inflamed vision since
The Inmost Light,
Aleph at Hallucinatory Mountain is the sound of
Current 93 at their most bruising. Sonically, it is a smorgasbord of feedback and electronics, shrieking shots and shocks of imagery that commence their assault on the opening
"Aleph Is the Butterfly Net"; dip for the contrarily hushed
"As Real as Rainbows," with its snatches of speech and conversation whispered out by a guesting
Sasha Grey; and then implode again around the sepulchral
"Invocation of Almost," guitars screaming like incendiary bombs while
Tibet recites with almost Biblical solemnity over a carnage that is all the more effective for its unpredictability. It is arguable whether
Aleph at Hallucinatory Mountain could be considered
Current 93's heaviest album, since the nightmare loops of their '80s output also sleep beneath some of
Tibet's tenderest melodies:
"On Docetic Mountain" is mournfully beautiful because of, not despite, the riffs that scythe across the cellos;
"Poppyskins" is epic regardless of the absence of any obviously ear-catching embellishments; and
"UrShadow" could have been culled from almost any
Current 93 album, at almost any time. This is the beauty of
Tibet's constantly shifting and eternally mesmerizing vision; at his best (and this album is up there with any of it), he is not simply timeless. He eclipses time altogether. ~ Dave Thompson
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