Leviathan is the
black metal project of one man:
Wrest hailing from
San Francisco. Started somewhere back in the early 90's from the ravages of other bands, Leviathan became Wrest's baby and also his whipping post, creating some of the most horrifing music ever put to tape. However no one got to hear this music until the release of
Verrator a two cd set of the best of a total of 13 full-length self released tape and cd-r demos. This release got the attention of
Moribund Cult Records, the home of other crazy black metal bands like
Judas Iscariot and
Xasthur among others, and the first full length official album was released.
The Tenth Sub Level of Suicide was perhaps the best black metal release of 2003 (though Xasthur was close) and is a twisted record of very grim and cold black metal. Leviathan's sound is easily identifiable, and although it takes a great deal of inspiration from
Burzum, the music on Leviathan's cds is not totally derivitive. For one part, Leviathan have no desire to find something outside of the darkness and deathlike music, Burzum always proported to try and create realms of fantasy to escape from this world of darkness. Leviathan are purely in that world of darkness, a
Nihilst nightmare.
Their next and newest album was released just last year (2004) and is titled The Tentacles of Whorror. The music is even more twisted and sadistic than before, and more tormenting of the listener. The guitars are louder and more intense, and the total sound feels like a horror movie, intense stuff.
Even now Leviathan continues to release tape and cd-r demos, and there's no telling when the next album could be released. Hell, there could be two or three Leviathan albums this year, you never know. The only thing I can see getting in the way of continued sucess for Wrest is people getting bored of listening to this sound. This is why I think there was a wait between the first two albums of a year, even though he released more demos, they're limited and for the fans.
The music definatly is some of the most Nihilistic music I have heard, in the case of first level Nihilsm, meaning this is music made for the negation of things, not (as in Burzum) for the negation and then transcendation of things. (Read Nietzsche's Will To Power). Also I think there is the idea behind creating terrible suicidal horrific music for the damage of human conciousness. Anyone interested in music like that should like Leviathan, thus if you like to torture yourself with bands like Skinny Puppy, Merzbow, Einsturzende Neubauten, etc. along with/or black metal you should dig this stuff.
Official Releases
Verrater....200?
The Tenth Sub Level of Suicide....2003
Tentacles of Whorror...2004