Ding the triangle and cue the sinister throat-singing. Maybe that’s not quite how you pictured a crushing black/death opus announcing its arrival, but Belgian cosmonauts Kosmokrator aren’t shy about taking risks. Even if it’s a thematic statement instead of self-congratulation, First Step Towards Supremacy is an album title that takes a shit-load of confidence to implement. But after the introduction mentioned above, “Initiate Decimation” establishes the four-track mini-album’s aesthetic with equal doses of savagery and sophistication.
Picture the bestial black metal of Black Witchery or Beherit blasted into whatever distant universe birthed Blood Incantation’s Starspawn. Or just picture a damn good death metal record with scorched blastbeats slipping into passages of transcendental shoegaze. Like Alderaan’s fate, First Step Towards Supremacy feels like a planet being scraped clean of all evidence of life, leaving only the echoes of past suffering behind. Stream it below to experience it for yourself before it’s officially released through Ván Records, then succumb to the magnetic pull of the pre-order link that follows.
Although the band shrouds their faces and withholds their identities, Kosmokrator doesn’t consider their anonymity a crucial element of their band. “It isn’t that important to us,” Kosmokrator collectively writes, “what is important is that the music and the concept of the whole band prevail over the individual members.” Kosmokrator adds that the album’s “main philosophy is a nihilistic and adversarial outlook on life; a philosophy of moral skepticism.” But don’t worry, knowing the difference between Epistemological and Mereological nihilism isn’t a prerequisite to join this “Death Worship” party. Maybe it’s true that the human mind can know nothing for sure, and that certainty is an illusion. But riffs don’t lie, and that’s an abundant resource on First Step Towards Supremacy.
If you’ve survived Kosmokrator’s planet-swallowing death metal, pre-order First Step Towards Supremacy from Ván Records on vinyl HERE. If CDs are your jam, pre-order HERE.
