review by: Roberto Martinelli

In case you're a new reader of Maelstrom and haven't yet seen our archived third issue, Leviathan is the black metal home project of San Francisco's Wrest, who records all the material on his own on a four track. Wrest is going through a creative period that makes other artists envious: he just keeps cranking out the material. This release is entitled Seven because it is the seventh full album's worth of material that Wrest has recorded in what is only a couple of years, I think.

The Slaveship material is the inclusion of the song "In this Slaveship," a cut from what Wrest deems as his "failed" eighth album (please see the interview with Wrest in this issue). As you will soon see by merely reading on past this review, there seems to be no end in sight to the development and volume of what Leviathan will produce.

Seven is to me the best work Wrest has done to date. For one, much has been improved on the minor problems experienced on his previous tape-based albums for which you needed to play your stereo fairly loud to hear properly. The material continues in the evil vision in Wrest's mind of midpaced and heavy black metal that was especially showcased on his Shadow of No Light album, mixed in with the kind of pockets of speed on the Misanthropic Necro Blasphemy album. Seven sees Wrest perfecting his vocal style, featuring the unnerving, bodiless cryptvox ala Burzum Filosofem that he introduced on Shadow of No Light, but mixing it up tastefully and interestingly with his chilling low croaks and with vocals that are as close to singing as Wrest should attempt to get without getting ridiculous. As always, the vocals are run though a processor, giving the voice a chilling black metal industrial effect.

As the production is clearer, the drums reveal themselves as being triggers for the first time, but the ear becomes accustomed to this. Wrest introduces some new elements to the fold such as a folky interlude with tambourine on the song "Shed this Skin," before wrapping the song up with the most beautiful riff of the album, a sort of catharsis to the rest of the grimness found on Seven - this riff provides the only time for sunlight to pierce the brooding stormclouds to stream in shafts over a black sea.

Despite its 74-minute length, Seven is a piece of work best listened to all in one sitting. Although I couldn't seem to want to get past the opener, "Black Fire Serenity," with its alternating pseudo-singing delivery and chilling, godly Burzum industrial rasp, heavy metal riffing and thundering mid-paced plod, I found that the mood that the album had to offer wasn't truly revealed until I heard it from beginning to end. Although this may seem daunting, it's not. Rather than seeming like overload, the songs on Seven + Slaveship meld together to make one massive dirge, really allowing the very last of the depraved depression to seep out and pollute the air around you. Here indeed is where Leviathan's greatest strength lies. It won't clunk you over the head by trying to be faster than the rest, but you'll be hard pressed to find a record that better embodies the essence of black metal evil and sadness than Seven.