Track By Tracls: Mormânt De Snagov - Invocation through Revocation (2023)

Mormânt De Snagov’s latest album “Invocation Through Revocation” (WormHoleDeath Records 2023) is an album that takes the listener on a journey through very different and versatile moods. From the furious blasts and epic melodies, all the way down to melancholic and atmospheric moments. In the physical CD release, each song has a unique artwork associated to it, that represents the song lyrics. Each artwork also contains a punch line from the lyrics that we wanted to highlight and bring up. Below are the detailed descriptions for each of the album tracks and artwork related to it.

1. ABSURDITY INGRAINED:

The song starts with a haunting clean guitar intro which also acts as an intro for the entire album. After the intro, a thrashing death metal riff kicks in accompanied by high-pitch scream vocals, which we consider to be an unlikely approach in this kind of context. This approach leaves more room for both: The riff and the lyrics. The chorus of "Absurdity Ingrained" is monotonic, yet kind of unexpected due to the missing first note of each bar in the rhythm guitars, which gives the whole chorus a bit of grooving feeling despite the very static chord progression and stable drum beat. The slowing outro of the song bridges the gap between the first two tracks of the album ending with a seamless transition to the next track.

The lyrics of "Absurdity Ingrained" are very typical Mormânt De Snagov style. The story in this song emphasizes the madness of the fact that we humans tend to have a blind faith in ideologies brought to them by organized religions. These ideologies tend to be deeply ingrained in the lives of these people.

The artwork pictures the songs’ lyrical theme spot on. The vines entwined on the face of this character represent the organized religions that enforce their ideologies on people’s minds. The vines leave only one eye visible to see the reality behind the beliefs based on the ancient holy writings. The text on the pic is rather obvious, haha!

2. PERENNIAL BLISS:

Perennial Bliss is the first track on this new album where the song writing style of V. Pekkala can be heard. He joined the band two years ago, and this is our first album where his music and lyrics are present. The opening part of the song is built from the chorus theme, borrowing elements from a few of our favorite bands, and it's designed to slowly build up to the furious guitar lead before descending into the rolling verse. The mid part of the song consists of an orchestral composition that is something new to Mormânt De Snagov. On our previous album "Exquisite Aspects of Wrath" we took a few steps in this direction, but the full potential was not unveiled until this part of "Perennial Bliss".

The lyrics in "Perennial Bliss" deal with the timeless topic of supremacy, and the inner strength which cannot be controlled by the false and naive narratives of life and death.

The picture for this song is obviously a twisted version of the word “bliss” providing several views to beauty and dread. In the lyrics “Timeless forms of existence” is mentioned, and the text on this picture leaves the question open to the viewer. Timeless forms of what?

3. UPON THEIR FEEBLE EXISTENCE:

This track takes Mormânt De Snagov to the previously unseen territory. That was one of the reasons this was selected as the first single for the new album. This, almost a gothic metal style, song is a catchy one, spiced with solo guitar parts which instead are very typical to Mormânt De Snagov since our fourth album. Back then we thought we would explore the soloing style that takes influences from the far outside the metal genre and is rarely heard in an extreme metal context, and on this album, we took this idea even further. To balance the mid-paced tempo of the song, there is a brutal surprise in the middle, built from a furious and stormy blast beat, unorthodox chord progression, and the longest scream ever recorded in this band's history. No studio magic here, just a deep breath and let it all out.

The lyrics are inspired by death and the finite length of a human life. The verses were written at the time of the death of a very close relative of one of the band members. The chorus closes the circle with profound thoughts about nihilism and enlightened darkness.

The artwork of this song describes a very miserable character with empty eyes. This feeble character blindly follows the empty throne of the forgotten ones, whereas there could also be an alternative path to take...

4. REVOCATION THROUGH INVOCATION:

It is kind of obvious that this is the title track of the album, but the words are in reverse order. The song itself is musically closest to traditional 2nd wave black metal compared to other tracks on the album. Not only because of the kick-ass blast beat but also because the guitar work leans heavily towards traditional black metal. There's also a nice surprise for all musicians out there, as the time signature is rather unusual. Mormânt De Snagov has always tried to experiment with expanding the boundaries of extreme metal, and sometimes we have drifted very far away from the cold raw style that was heard on our first two albums. This musical variety is intentional, but one should remember that the music is only one part of the song. The lyrics and their meaning have always been very important to us, so even if the music is sometimes very far away from black metal or extreme metal, the lyrics still have a dark and ideological core. This song, however, takes us musically back to our roots.

The lyrics of Revocation Through Invocation are inspired by the works of two great thinkers of our time; authors who can be described as a decadent poet and an anarchist philosopher.

The picture of this song kind of also refers to literature, yet more to the prose side of it, and especially to a certain horror author who wrote about ancient god-like malicious beings. The picture is not directly tied to the lyrics, but more to the atmosphere and the feeling in the lyrics.

5. THE CLOAK OF DOCTRINE:

Steady double bass drum, floating guitar riffs, jazz chord progressions, and amazing basslines are the key elements that make this song. This is a track where one should pay close attention to what happens on each of the instruments. "The Cloak of Doctrine" sounds very easy listening but there are plenty of things happening beneath the surface, and that's what makes this song great.

The lyrics are kind of twofold: The chorus is again more typical for us describing how hollow religions and their idols are. The verse instead is written to include a few references to song titles from other bands that we like, while still being aligned with the theme of the song. This is not the first time we have borrowed song names from other bands in our lyrics, but for sure this is the most obvious one.

The artwork for this song refers to the chorus of this song, which asks the questions of what a god would look like, smell like or feel like. It also asks the question how someone can build their life on something that is so well hidden and cloaked?

6. HERETIC INCEPTION:

Let's get progressive! The intro begins with 13/8 -time signature quickly changing into a raging storm of old-school death metal riffs. The verse riff was composed by accident when messing around with a guitar just for the fun of it. That was one of those "hold it... this actually sounds good" -moments. Notice the vocal arrangements; It would have been obvious to do low growling vocals here, but we did it differently. High-pitched screams form a cool contrast with the riffs. The ending solo is just as chaotic as it can get: Three guitar solos mixed all together, all of them being improvised at the time of recording. This is wild!

The lyrics of this song are again something that cannot be described as surprising in the context of Mormânt De Snagov. This song is a very straightforward train of thought about the insanity of organized religions.

The picture represents the brutal force of this song. Nothing too fancy here, just a simplified twisted picture that picks up one of the key lines from the lyrics.

7. VALEDICTION FOR THE NAMELESS:

Okay, here we go... this song is something no one would ever expect from Mormânt De Snagov. Not even after we recorded "The Vague End" on our previous album, which was already a significant leap to something different. This one is an instrumental that takes it one step further. The whole thing is basically arranged to support the guitar solos. The solos are written and played in a style that has the same vibe as in "Upon Their Feeble Existence". The solo melodies by M. Lehtivuori would be more likely to be heard on albums that are not even close to metal. Those various and beautiful melodies are supported by the genius basslines by P. Venho that are composed to sit tightly together with the superior and solid drum work by P. Jokela. As a final touch, the clean guitars played by V. Pekkala bring the whole song together as an out-of-the-box masterpiece where the whole band has room to do what they do best.

This instrumental track contains a spoken quote from the French poet Charles Baudelaire.

The artwork captures the essential part of the Baudelaire quote. A very melancholic picture that brings up plenty of thoughts about the concept of “a memory”.