Endless Dismal Moan – Lord of Nightmare (Reissue)
Endless Dismal Moan – Lord of Nightmare (Reissue)
Hessian Firm
Release Date: 25/07/2025
Review by Laura Barnes
100000/10
The term ‘Cult Classic’ is thrown around far too loosely for my liking. I am of the rather radical opinion that any piece of music, film or TV that can be purchased at your local Asda should not be considered a cult classic. ‘Pulp Fiction’ is not a cult classic. ‘OK Computer’ is not a cult classic. ‘The Breakfast Club’? Don’t even get me started. Discovering a cult classic should feel like discovering fairies at the bottom of your garden – would anyone believe you? Would anyone even care? The best cult classics eat away at you and leave you lonely in your obsession as you trawl obscure forums at 3am, desperate to find someone, anyone out there that loves the same weird shit that you do. A true cult classic is rare find these days, but Hessian Firm don’t fuck around. Elbows deep in blood and viscera, they reach into the Metal underground of years past and pull out sounds gnarly and grotesque. Today, they’ve pulled out the abject horror that is “Lord of Nightmare”.
“Lord of Nightmare” spawned from the mind of the elusive Japanese musician Chaos9, way back in 2006. Under the project name Endless Dismal Moan, Chaos9 began scaring the shit out of everyone in 2001 with the demo albums “Chaos” and “Chaos II”, two works of Raw Black Metal that are so viscerally disturbing they should probably require a mental health evaluation before listening. It is “Lord of Nightmare”, however, that remains Endless Dismal Moan’s crowning glory.
“Lord of Nightmare” is a creature beyond Black Metal. It is a creature beyond music, beyond sanity, beyond all that is good and holy in the world. I do not say this lightly: this music is genuinely terrifying. There is nothing performative or theatrical about Chaos9’s strangled screeching here; it betrays a genuine anguish that I can’t even begin to fathom. From the ice-cold entrance to ‘Thirst for Pleasure’ to the strangled distortion that ends ‘ENDLESS DISMAL MOAN [9 to Death]’ “Lord of Nightmare” is a white-knuckle tour through hell, with each room being more harrowing than the last. ‘Griefs’, for example, is a sonic exploration of sheer hopelessness. Guitar fuzz to the right of you; bloodthirsty blastbeats to the left. Ahead of you, Chaos9 is lying on the ground, shrieking in agony, and you can’t look away. There is no escape. There never was. Why did you even try looking?
The album veers wildly between traditional Black Metal and twisted Industrial sounds, creating an atmosphere that the press release so aptly described as ‘Urban Horror’. Title track ‘Lord of Nightmare’ is a beast forged primarily of traditional Black Metal. Lead by tremolo riffs and supported by operatic background vocals, this track is heavy and cold enough to have every Metalhead in Norway nodding their head (…and, perhaps, looking over their shoulder, locking their doors extra tight, sleeping with one eye open…). If it were anyone else, this track could have easily been a campy romp in the style of Mayhem, but in Chaos9’s hands, this track ends up being as sincere as it is heavy. ‘Thirst’ and ‘I.S.L.N.D’ are on the other end of the spectrum – here is where the most potent terror lies. Listen closely – is that a trumpet, or is it somebody crying? Is that distortion, or a death rattle? Putting atmosphere ahead of musicality, Endless Dismal Moan reach a depth of darkness that frightens and repulses.
It would be impossible to talk about “Lord of Nightmare” without talking about that last track – ‘ENDLESS DISMAL MOAN [9 to Death]’. I can’t really call this track a song – it’s a 9-minute-long sonic ego death, a warping whirlpool of mechanical noise. It’s not an easy listen, but of course, that was never the point.
Writing about the art of somebody who is no longer with us is a tricky thing. Chaos9 sadly took his own life on June 26th, 2008. A lazier writer than I could easily say something like “Endless Dismal Moan was no doubt an expression of a troubled soul”, but the truth is that none of us really knew this man. For all we know, he could have been at his happiest when making this sort of music, laughing to himself as he turned the distortion higher, saying “this one is really gonna scare the shit out of them”. No, I don’t know anything about Chaos9, but what I do know is this: “Lord of Nightmare” is a masterpiece of creativity, and the heaviest music I have heard in my entire life. Creating something this boundary-pushing requires more than just mere talent – it’s an act of bravery, a level of vulnerability that the majority of people will never come close to. “Lord of Nightmare” will probably never claim its well-deserved place in the Metal Hall of Fame, but that’s okay. For those of us whose algorithm is fucked up enough to suggest this, this album will live on somewhere much cooler: our fucking nightmares.
LINE-UP:
Chaos9 – All instruments, vocals
LINKS:
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