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I

t is hard to present the new album of Turkish band Seth.ECT named Godspeak without using superlatives. What makes this band so special is really bright usage of industrial, death and black metal with many oriental elements to create the whole which literally blows up your mind. The connection between Seth.ECT and more popular Turkish band Raven Woods is undeniable but it is more than clear that the experience was used in the very best way to create a very complex band and album.

Godspeak is very synthetic and in a way very raw piece which still goes in the furious tempo of death metal. Many bands that choose the industrial path are often accused of not being metal enough but in case of Seth.ECT it’s nowhere close to the truth. The riffs are fast and striking and drums cyclonic yet the melodies create the balance which puts the songs to the level where chaos becomes art and elements which may sound incompatible sublime into a suggestive creation.

There is nothing new or world-shaking about putting contrast into the music, but combining religious and mythological components and purely synthetic lines sounds more than entertaining. The melodic parts as well as the chorals are neatly connected to hard and heavy elements and one would have to be deaf not to notice the classically black or thrash metal moments. It is also hard to ignore occasional Behemoth-ish staves which still don’t make the album less original.

Despite the entirety of the album it takes only few listens to burn out the songs into your mind since every piece has something perfectly entrancing. Sometimes it is the ominous atmosphere like in Orison (the normal version as well as the instrumental one), other times it is an exceptional work with the vocals as in Keops, where the voice creates very original kind of graduation.

But what is common for all of the songs is a shocking energy and sting and the disturbance caused by certain electronic sounds, which not only add spice to the songs, they also keep the mind of a listener prepared for a smash. And the first songs ECT and B.L.A.S.T. with their names as well as sounds only prove it. Mysticism is staying within the songs though, mainly thanks to the key and instrumental passages like in When The Simurgs Collapse or For Se7en Years. On the other hand, there are compositions which contain pure industrial blast like Earth Rise, Hollow Earth or Heart Beat (with Orison my favourite one).

You don’t need to listen to Godspeak many times to completely fall for it. It is slightly difficult to critically describe a work that from the very first tunes shows the exceptional preciseness and preciousness. From battle cry to female chorals, from synth to oriental strains – the contrasts are mixed together but what you get is not a boring gray. It’s a breeze of something new and promising, so lucent in its darkness, so complex in its details. Deep yet blinding – this is what Godspeak is.