Mussorgski - Creatio Cosmicam Bestiae

MUSSORGSKI - Creatio Cosmicam Bestiae (GODZ OV WAR - CD 2016)

This album turned out to be surprisingly good, I have to say. Especially because the music, which Mussorgski doesn’t belong to my favourites. But from time to time I really do like to play something different and then I happen to play also some industrialized black metal. And this is more or less exactly what Mussorgski performs on their third album “Creatio Cosmicam Bestiae”. The fact that it’s their third album is also a surprise for me, because I’ve never heard their previous efforts. I knew the band name since forever, it was popping up here and there already in the 90’s, but I never bothered to check Mussorgski music. But as they say, it’s better late than never and honestly, “Creatio Cosmicam Bestiae” intrigued me enough to pick up the previous releases as well. I will do that one day for sure. In the meantime I wanted to play “Creatio…” once again… and again.

This album is almost like a journey through something uncanny, bizarre and sick. It gives a lot of different emotions, but from the strict musical point of view it’s very varied, original sounding and unusual combination of harsh black metal with a lot of epic, monumental sounds, strongly underlined with almost symphonic keyboards, occasionally spiced up with industrial dirt and dark ambient emotions. You should not be surprised if one minute you’ll hear an aggressive, almost harsh black metal and next there will be calm, ambiental piece. And luckily, with eight songs and 50 minutes of music, Khorzon – who’s behind Mussorgski as its sole member – had enough ideas to keep it all interesting. I’m sure that when you’ll listen to “Creatio Cosmicam Bestiae” your impression will be varied as well. Some of you will love it, some other will hate, as it’s not an easy album and surely also not an offer for black metal purists, who will despise its unhuman, cold, mechanical sound. Luckily for me Mussorgski didn’t overdo with the experimental part of their music and even though songs like “God Is in the Neurons” are among my less favourite, I rather have no problem with them.

All that it’s due to good balance between the experimental, industrial and ambient side of “Creatio Cosmicam Bestiae” and its sheer black metal side. I would probably easily pass the instrumental tracks like “Stellar Core”, but I can also understand their importance for the whole album’s structure. I have to say that many times during listening of “Creatio…” I felt very pleased when for example song like “Sabbathum in Perpetuum” blew out the speakers with some blasts and atmosphere that almost reminded me some mid-era Limbonic Art stuff. And right after that “Key to the Universe” has almost Thorns – like feeling, of that cold and grim, industrial sound. Two songs and two different aspects of the extreme music. And this is for me the greatest thing about this album. Also because Mussorgski managed to compose just brilliant stuff, very well thought through, composed and performed. That compliment includes the vocals also – which are mainly performed by Ravn (ex-Taran, Warfist and few more), but sporadically enriched by female vocals, choruses and kind of mechanical sounding declamations. Yes, definitely “Creatio Cosmicam Bestiae” is a great album, I have no doubt about it.

By the way, it’s really cool that with the release of “Creatio Cosmicam Bestiae” by Godz ov War the circle has been closed, because back in 1992 the second demo “The Bath in the X-Rays” was released by Kassandra Distro, which was run by the same Greg, who’s behind Godz ov War.

Standout tracks: “Sabbathum in Perpetuum”, “Gaaya – The Planet of the Dead”, “Paradisum”

Final rate: 80/100