THE WORMLUST COLLECTIVE #1

REYKJAVÍK

AD SUMPTUS nostrae SANITAS ET TEMPORE MMXII

DISSECTING CREATION

AND

INCANTATIONS

THROUGH WRIT

AN

INQUIRY INTO THE

NATURE AND REALITY OF THE

PATHS TO THE VOID

AN INTRODUCTORY DISCOURSE, NOTES, AND SUPPLEMENTAL DISSERTATIONS

VOL. I.

REYKJAVÍK

MMXII

Past

This creation before you is a collection of thoughts, spells and reviews that try to project the era of 2009-2011 of Wormlust to the reader, this is done in tandem with the releaseof the CD version of “The Wormlust collective” by Murder sui-cide/incidents. By collecting all this mana together we intend to give these releases one unified voice, both from the source of their creation as well as from the interpetation of others. A collective experience; Not interviews in glossy articles whispering into an intellectual void but rather a shared space of magic. This scroll is part archival, part zine but ulti-mately the ritualistic burial of previous efforts.

Future This year left in its wake burned instruments, months wasted in solitude and hours upon hours of nightmarish music created. The first evidence of this will be HIN DÝRSLEGA VISKA which in english would roughly translate to “The celestial/bestial wisdom”. Those interested can contact Wormlust at hafsteinn1@gmail.com to continue the dialogue.

THE WORMLUST COLLECTIVE #1

I. Martraðir,

or: (Nightmares, folk-lore and sleep paralysis.) II. Dissecting incantations.

Oblivio appositus and the triune

III. The review collective.

IV. Kollvörpun; eliminating barriers

I. Martraðir

or: (Nightmares, Folk lore and sleep paralysis.)

Words have power’ is a oft-uttered idiom and like so many other weath-ered thought experiments it has a core truth to it. For example in judeo-christian myth only the utterence of a single word creates existence itself for a omnipresent creature and its playthings. In everyday situations we ourselves breathe the fire of life into every day objects by calling up in our minds the labels we have learned to place upon them through our years of living. By learning these words in childhood we have slowly and assuredly gained dominion over our surroundings. By time select few definitions and words even gain more power in our minds than others, some will recant these words when faced with strife or danger. We may live in a post-press revolution,post-mythic reality and not really feel the power of all those words we possess but that doesnt eraze either their power or legacy . Fol-lowing the logic of old age magic we can by methodically stripping words down to their core challenge their power and transfer them to our own use. For long we have experienced the feeling of being trampled upon by malevolent forces, waking up and being unable to move. Know-ing what it is to be prisoners of our own bodies in moments that seem unending. Trying to shake ourselves into waking, only to fall back into a state of intense visions and after what feels like an eternity experi-encing it all over again. Completely immersing ourselves with night-mares. Years went by before we got to know our enemy and applied the lyricism and symbolism of myths to these unnamed demons. The icelandic word martröð which means ‘experiencing intense nausea and powerlessness while sleeping’ is a composite of the proto-Indo-European word ‘mara’ and the icelandic word ‘traðka’. Maras can strangely enough be found both in icelandic folklore and tibetan myths, sharing a very specific fate of both being demons. For buddhists Mara is the tempter, the ultimate enemy and all unknown forces combined in one entity. The ‘all-powerful lord of evil’. The icelandic demon has more in common with the succubi found in islamic mythos, being a fiend that rides on its victims chest and causing the sleeper nightmares. The literal meaning of the word is ‘to die’. Tröð comes from old-norse and means ‘to trample’. Together ‘mara and ‘tröð’ as ‘martröð’ simply mean ‘nightmare’.

I. Martraðir

or: (Nightmares, Folk lore and sleep paralysis.)

We consider ourselves to be rationalistst but also more in the line with the old surrealist movement -opting to see the world through nightmare colored spectacles. Trying to examine true thoughts and emotions through avenues of macabre visions. If steely matter-of-fact art was the only thing to remain, then art in that hypothetical world could not really be consid-ered art, since art remains to realm of other worldy creations. It is how we distinguish ourselves from the mindless beasts of this world - yet what does it mean to be a beast? In our culture serial killers are could be consid-ered beasts yet many of them are also skilled artists. Artists that murder. Murder, the act which by societys definitions is what changes us from man to these lowly creatures that belong only to bad dreams, but it could be reasoned that murder as an act is to be considered art, - even possibly the ultimate artform. As it is certainly is thinking outside the box, giv-ing into pure impulses and then carving these desires permanently unto other human beings - giving them their last and most intense experience of their lives. But If we were to accept the serial killer as an artist and his acts as happening of sorts why stop there? Every moment where we take someone out of their state of every day trance could be equivelent to a well crafted melody or a moving painting. These small acts might even be last refuge of art in our desensetized world, like surrealism was a response to stagnation in its by time taking people out of their comfort zone - could it

even be the next thing? Most likely not, since these performances are too intimate to have any impact on a larger scale, it is work thats done under pseudonym done for the sake of its self, affecting handful of people. The ruth is that most seem to feel the need to see their names in headlines, terrorists for in-stance like many afamed artist do their work under a slogan to promote their own name rather than the ideal thats supposedly behind the catch phrases and violence, Smokes and mirrors. This is testament to the fact that the more fame people seek for the unpurer their art becomes since their goal is not the conception of the art itself but in fact the lust for being recognized, being idolized by strangers. We should aspire to rather be the creatures of others nightmares than the fools in their newspapers.

II. Dissecting incantations.

Oblivio appositus.

The rough concept of these two recordings were written about two years prior to being fully fleshed out in their current form. Mostly artis-tic flurishes and such were added on later in the process but the idea itself had always been fully formed in our head. The larvean Inauguration is a thought experiment on the sudden self awareness/birth and subsequent death/devourment of a god by it´s Id. The overall theme of the lyrics is a crude socratic question and answer method within the boundaries of a tale that poses an argument:

a)What defines a god as a god in monotheism is that it is a perfect being without any flaws, but this force must also be geo-centric , “listening to our prayers “ so to speak.

b)If a god is a sentient being in our sense of the word then he wouldbe a slave to the same thought lowly patterns in which we define it.

c)Therefore this hypothetical god would be flawed and therefore not exist.

The narrative itself has upon the stage two players, the god and the Id, in this case Id has found the form of a worm - symbolically eat-ing through the mind and flesh of its host when it animates itself. In the background the universe created around is also born and instantly dies. Not unlike the tale of saturn and his children only with the roles reversed, the gods subconscious being in effect the child of its mind. We can also think of the worm in terms of anti-matter, always grav-itating to a state of unbeing in our sense, the counterpart to matter. This is the essence and meaning of the words that together become worm-lust, the unknowing desire of all flawed things to become non-existant.

Triune

Reincarnation, a sickening proposal. Similar to being stuck on cosmic life support without being able to move for all eternity and all subse-quent perceivable eternities to come. In this scenario since all of lifes paths eventually lead you to the starting point the number seven which is being referred to is irrelevent, which might as well be the billionth path - the number is solely there as a reference to the seven ages of men. Men stuck in a system of eternal limbo, a system in which to us enlightenment must then be the pursuit towards the sweet relief of the void. The afformention Seven paths as a release is a part of a bigger narrative, one work which is split into three by times of their completion, but are in fact one singular creation. The subject matter is the the overall concept of an afterlife, and the fear of being placed in celestial gardens with the same petty thoughts we carry with us through live for all of eternity -truly is a ghoulish thought. Being put in a prison where the bars are our inferior ape-like thoughts with no hope of parole for all of eternity. Looking out on the unattain-able, slowly losing taste for life eternal, the golden apples turned sour, - fear undescribable whispers. The prospect of watching those around us struggle with these same terrors as ourself and silently drifting into de-mentia on the elysium fields.Ultimately the lyrical content is a hymn to the void or svarthol - asking to be allowed touch the hems of its anti-life garment. The namesake release Svarthol and follow up as a recording to Sev-en Paths is an attempt to convey the sensation of being pulled towards the center of a spiritual void and in the end being ground up by the forc-es that are at work to cancel out any shred of matter. Following that is The Opium sleep which as a piece could be stylis-tically be thought of as anti-music, finally establishing the fact that what once was, is no more - Only slowly fading echoes of a sentient being remain.

III. The review collective

III. The review collective

What follows are the writings of others on the project, their interpretations and projections have been collected here together within to both honour their time and efforts as well to create an independent documentation. To preserve their work as well as a specific period in time.

This (Wormlust) is another Reykjavík band I discovered through a reader comment (from Altargoat) on that earlier post about Svar-tidauði and Vansköpun, and then I saw the name again on a Fa-cebook status by Gone Postal, who described Wormlust as “an ex-ceptional take on ambient/psychedelic/black metal”, and a band whose music influenced Gone Postal’s album-in-the-works. Wormlust appears to be the alter ego of one H.V Lyngdal, who was the founding member of an earlier band named Wolfheart. Wormlust recorded a single-song demo on Volkgeist Productions (Seven Paths) and a split with an Irish black metal band named Haud Mundus called Oblivio Appositus, which was released by Total Holocaust Recordings. In 2010, Wormlust released another single-song demo titled Svarthol, and then an instrumental demo in 2011 named The Opium Sleep.

Fortunately for me, Wormlust created a Bandcamp page that col-lects “Seven Paths”, “Svarthol”, and “The Opium Sleep” in a com-pilation called The Wormlust Collective. Each song is quite long, and the compilation as a whole totals more than 45 minutes of music — and it can be downloaded on Bandcamp for free (or ordered as a CD).

Because I really wanted to get this post done today, before May ends, I only listened to “Svarthol” — though it has convinced me to hear the rest of the comp asap. The song is more than 16 minutes long and it travels through a changing soundscape of persistent fascination. The beginning casts a spell of slow, dreamlike ambience, with echoing guitars ringing over a heart-like pulse. In the song’s second segment, spacey synth/guitar effects set the stage, and the guitars then roar like a giant hornet swarm over submerged, rancid vocals and rumbling drum blasts. A slower, doomier passage then follows, the atmosphere growing more ominous and claustrophobic before a moment of silence descends — a silence that acts as a bridge to the gradually building crescendo of the song’s next phase. It ris-es in a cascade of storm-like fury that’s nonetheless melodic and hypnotic.

The storm finally spends its force, leaving behind an opening sky, the music painting images of a dark atmosphere slowly pierced by rays of light, or clouds scudding before the face of an illuminating moon. The song ends dramatically with one final burst of roiling intensity.

I like this very much. -Nocleansinging, 2012.

Another fantastic pieces from the defunct but always wonderful icelandic corpse, Wormlust. I’ve talked about this band previously here on FxC, you can check it out here and here. If you’re into high quality Black Metal i to-tally recommend this band to you. The atmosphere created by Wormlust is just mind blowing, simply the best material in this genre i’ve ever heard in my life. So, in order to complete Wormlust’s discography i bring you today it’s final breaths, “Svarthol” from 2010 and “The Opium Sleep” from last year. Sadly, there’s only one track to each Demo. “Svarthol” is a fabulous 16 minute track of the most brilliant atmospheric Black Metal ever made, the sound is very good and it just makes me mad that a band like this had to end... why?? I curse you H.V Lyngdal, from the day you came out of your mother’s womb. Why did you had to make such brilliant music like this as Wormlust and then left us, wandering blinded by your magnificent hymns in this dying world of illusion? Guess we will never know the answer. “The Opium Sleep” is strictly an ambient/instrumental track, clearly the last expiring last breath of air coming out from Wormlust. It’s the perfect song to hear if you were the only person left alone on this planet. They say eve-ry genius has touch of madness. But don’t we all? Highly Recommended.

-Forevercursed blog, 2012.

“Art defined as the act of personal expression” H.V Lyngdal, the main figure of WORMLUST, has released a new demo, consisting of just one amazing track, DRENCHED with Atmosphere. For all Atmospheric BM fans. “Under the influence of days of sleep deprivation we started record-ing things we would not have been created otherwise, We kept on pushing myself and recording until the music started to smother everything out of us. It is the map to our streams of consciousness for the listener then to drown in. We like having total control in Wormlust, and idea of control it-self. – With music we can influence a person aurally into a certain mood by something that we create. Art defined as the act of personal expression out-side of the primal urges does not exist we believe. It´s all about dominance. By ourselves we e can keep the overall vision and ultimately the control.”

-The left hand trident,2010.

Pure, debilitating bleak reveries from the Icelandic genius behind Wormlust. The two tracks on display here are monuments of aggression and frightful visions. Stylistically akin to the more possessed moments of Leviathan, Wormlust weaves horrifying atmospheres with drawn out ambient sections and angular guitar melodies. The vocals, an acerbic mixture of full-bodied howls and throat-centered murmurs, cap the lyrical content perfectly. Wormlust has more in common with the mod-ern school of black metal, with tremolo’d, drawn-out riffs and predilec-tion for grandeur atmospheres: a haunting, visceral journey through the catacombs of delirious nightmares. Varied and engaging, a voyage quite unlike the stagnant beast that was Wrest’s latest effort.

Haud Mundus meet Wormlust with a more restrained take on proceed-ings. Sections of haunting ambience are interspersed with powerful for-ays into minimal but engaging black metal, akin to the industrial tinge present on Lunar Aurora’s latest opus. Haud Mundus’s strength differs from the abrasive, engaging and manifold textures of Wormlust by bur-rowing into your consciousness with hypnotic, subliminal tones. You become entranced. Both projects represent varied, upper-tier black met-al complete with deep, empowered production values and should not be missed. One of the most under-acknowledged splits in recent years.

-Lurker´s path,2012.

Something else I’ve been sitting on. Wormlust is a defunct black metal band out of Iceland consisting solely of H.V. Lyngdal. His discography consists solely of a fistful of demos and one split with Haud Mundus, which is a shame because what little exists is really top quality stuff. Orthodox black metal intermingles with dark ambient in Wormlust’s compositions, creating an aura that is at once claustrophobic and at-mospheric, brooding, and desolate. And also only tangentially related to orthodox, second wave black metal. Lyngdal eschews the shitty-on-purpose production values and plodding tempos typical in bedroom black metal. Wormlust goes way beyond that. This is truly haunting material – think Sunn O)))’s Black One, GY!BE’s F#A#∞, or 2001′s “stargate” sequence for some totally not-black metal comparisons. Yeah, there’s tremolo picking and blast-ing and all that good stuff, but that doesn’t describe how it feels, man. Moreover, those “pure” black metal sections have more in common with WitTR or Panopticon than Mayhem or Darkthrone.

-Junkyard god, 2012.

Wormlust became the talk of the über-underground town with the release of demo and a split with Ireland’s Haud Mun-dus. An impressive Black Metal project with twisted ambience se-curing it in the modern yet mysterious and dark spectrum.

-Reykjavik Grapevine magazine, 2010.

Wormlust is a newer black metal band from Iceland. I’m hesitant to call it atmospheric black metal because I don’t want to give the wrong impression. Wormlust doesn’t throw “atmosphere” on top of black metal - it uses black metal to create atmosphere. Lyngdal, the only musician currently behind Wormlust, has also brought up the psyche-delic influences in his music, but they’re not the focus of the project. The sound bears some resemblance to both Fell Voices and Rebirth of Nefast, but Wormlust is superior to both. If you’re into droning black metal (and not the Russian kind where they’re so busy being Nazis they forget to write music) with crushing atmosphere, give this a shot. Recommended listening: Start with Seven Paths (their best IMO) and then move onto Svarthol. Oblivio Appositus is good but features a guest vo-calist for its entirety. Sadly, I’ve been unable to track down the 2006 demo.

-Loadown,2010.

Oblivio Appositus brings together the talents of two of the younger, dour acts of the North Atlantic Ocean, a form fitting collaboration that sees its share of both atmospheric metal riffing and long, beautiful passages of ambiance. Ireland’s Haud Mundus is the product of Wann and Gast, both members of the more traditional black metal band Myrkr; Gast also late of the promising Sol Axis and Slidhr. Wormlust is the brainchild of H.V. Lyngdal, who spends time between his native Iceland and England. I had already some exposure to the latter, reviewing the 2009 Wormlust demo called Seven Paths, which consisted of a single, 12+ minute long track, and a damned good one at that. But outside of Sol Axis and Myrkr, I had not heard Haud Mundus prior to the split...

Clearly, judging by their contributions to this release, I have been missing out, because their two tracks here are quite magnificent examples of the balance possible between the black and ambient genres. “Veins of Stone” is over 13 minutes, opening with a cavernous cacophony of morbid gloom and ringing hammer-like strikes, from which a slicing, huge guitar tone soon erupts, and becomes even huger as the duo lumbers through a number of devious, crashing poles. “Forever Desiccate the Seed” is briefer, at around 8 minutes, but its also denser and faster, more of a traditional black metal at first, then branching out into a number of ambient segues, like a mix of Shining and Raison d’Etre. I’d also point out that the produc-tion used by Haud Mundus is massive and accessible, a sure sign that the band could be taken very seriously in this particular sub-strain, courted by labels who value fidelity alongside other credibility.

Wormlust, too, has adopted a more bold if calamitous sense for pro-duction, and his two pieces here trumph the Seven Paths demo by meas-ure of aggression alone. Truly, this is a frightening experience, Lyngdal’s full, bloodied throat casting a ghastly pallor over the surging threads of “Surge - About the Death of a God” and the dusky, swelling phantasm that is “The Larvean Inauguration (Or: A Feast for the Animal of Reflec-tion)”. Thematically and stylistically, the material is not a far shot from Haud Mundus, so together the two flow like of wet stream of cursed con-crete, its mortar drawn from the blood of angels and innocents. I felt that Wormlust was inherently more caustic and chaotic, with almost random

segues into wild ambient, but he compensates by being the more horrific entity of the split.

The release itself is quite attractive, with a striking bloodied crown on its face, and a lyric booklet included with the digipak. I’m not accus-tomed to splits with great art direction, and though by all appearances this is minimal, I really loved the cerebral imagery it projected as I was listening to these interesting bands. Haud Mundus and Wormlust are both worthy of taking the reins from the now-defunct Xasthur, perhaps Leviathan, oining their voice into the chorus of obscurity championed by many devotees of Burzum and other dire progenitors. Their pairing here can be no accident, because they both share the same skill at creat-ing discomfort through laxing and swelling climes of glacial fascination.

-Autothrall, 2010.

“The split release of Irish Haud Mundus and Icelandic Wormlust is dif-ficult to put into words.” This is how the label starts their presentation of this split album, and it couldn’t be put more accurately. The task of forming words while listening to this seems useless – but perhaps in-credibly important. I rate this split highly. This is just the kind of mu-sic that sinks in if you´re in the mood for it; and if you are, this one´s a grand jewel. Violent and rich in sound and details, Haud Mundus transports the mind attached to human flesh into something unexplain-able. Remind yourself to play this when you´re in the right mood. If you crave awesome riffs, put Slayer on. This is a multi-complex affair that one only copes with individually and in solitude. If I had to make some sort of tabloid explanation, I would say that, whereas Haud Mundus would appeal to those of you who enjoy the more violent and chaotic parts of Deathspell Omega, Wormlust seems to conjure music into an

unworldly dream-state. And these are not the dreams your parents want you to have. Both these bands have a weird way of putting their music together. It can still be termed music, but it somehow also challenges the definition of music. There´s more to this than words can describe. Scum

-Nordic vision magazine, 2011.

Split-Veröffentlichungen sind zu einer sonderbaren Erscheinung am Plattenmarkt verkommen, weil in Zeiten des superschnellen Internets [und der nicht minder beeindruckend flotten Medienpiraterie] in fast jede beliebige Band reingehört werden und sich ebenso rasch entschei-den kann, ob einem das vorgelegte Material nun taugt oder nicht. Der Weg, an Frischfleisch für die Anlage zu kommen, hat sich durch den Wegfall von Mailorder-Listen und Gratis-Beigaben bei großen Bes-tellungen verkürzt, womit nur noch die untergrundigsten PC- und Netz-Verweigerer im Black Metal auf dieses Format zurückgreifen. Bei aller künstlich herbeigeführter Romantik, die bei Splits anno 2010 zwangsläufig mitweht, muss man ganz nüchtern attestieren, dass die letzte ausnahmslos tolle Angelegenheit in dem Bereich auf den Namen “The Forest is My Throne / Yggdrasill”, fünfzehn Lenzen zählt und seit-dem nie wieder qualitativ eingeholt wurde. An dieser Tatsache ändert auch die vorliegende Zweisamkeit im Plattenformat zwar auch nicht viel, lässt aber rein vom Inhalt her hier und da durchaus aufhorchen.

Den Anfang machen die bis dato recht unbekannten Ge-sellen von HAUD MUNDUS, dessen Personal sich mit dem des Ge-genspielers überschneidet; schließlich werkelte Gitarrist Wann auch kurz bei den Isländern. Musikalisch verfolgen die ersten zwei Stücke einen RUINS ähnelnden Black/Death-Mix, hier allerd-ings auf epischen Längen ausgewälzt sowie dank Einsatz einer stim-mungsvollen Hintergrundklangwand um einige Grade düsterer.

Es ist interessant, zu beobachten, wie verschiedene Stufen der Intensität erreicht werden; der Vergleich eines mal stärker, mal schwächender wer-denden Monsunregens drängt sich geradezu auf: Die Gitarren sind im Sä-gen und Beißen genauso gut wie im Erzeugen semiakustischer, verstörend traumhafter Klangwelten. Von einem Moment auf den anderen schlägt die Stimmung um, wobei sich das Duo in der Darbietung selbst keine Schnitzer erlauben, sondern einen mit der schieren Wucht ihres Sounds aus den Socken hieven; vor allem deswegen, da das Gesamtpaket einfach stimmt. Es kommt den beiden Protagonisten nicht in den Sinn, in die übli-chen Fettnäpfchen wie Standard-Füllerideen und dergleichen zu tapsen, was man schon als eine wohltuende Abwechslung in diesem Genre sehen kann. “Veins Of Stone” und “Forever Desiccate The Seed” protzen jeden-falls voller Charakter, der zum erneuten Hören einlädt. Überraschend gut! Weniger euphorisch hingegen fällt das Urteil für die nächsten beiden Beiträge zu diesem “Gemeinschaftstonträger” aus. WORMLUST verste-hen es zwar formell sehr gut, rohes Schwarzmetall abzuliefern, allerdings ist den Songs genau jener Fehler behaftet, der zuvor vermieden wurde: stil-istische Gewohnheiten, denen man schon zu oft Gehör geschenkt hat und mir zumindest schon gehörig am Sack gehen. Diese Baustelle gewährt ihrer Leidenschaft für rohes, über weite Strecken monotones Gerödel, der ohne geniale Geistesblitze auskommen muss. Form minus Inhalt also. Sonder-lich schrecklich klingt das hier zwar nicht, jedoch verliert es sehr schnell an Reiz. Angesichts dessen, was uns Gast [ich weiß...] sonst so - insbeson-dere bei REBIRTH OF NEFAST - vor den Latz geknallt, ein wenig schade. Wenn man nach mathematischen Maßstäben verfährt, so muss man natürlich die fade Masse, mit der WORMLUST ihren Teil zur Platte beitragen, bei der Bewertung genauso in Betracht ziehen wie das bislang fantastische Schaffen von HAUD MUNDUS. Ich bin aus zwei Gründen nicht bereit dazu: Das Digipak macht einen schnieken Eindruck und gefällt mir rein von der Aufmachung als fast alles An-dere in dem Gebiet da draußen und zum Zweiten macht es keinen Sinn, angesichts der klaren Überlegenheit HAUD MUNDUS’ strikt nach dem Gleichheitsprinzip vorzugehen. Fünf knappe Punkte also für eine Veröffentlichung, die ab dem dritten Stück verzichtbar ist? JA!

-Metalnews, 2010.

Wormlust released an absolute gem of horrific black-ambient this year in Svarthol; a record good enough, in fact, to get me to fork out for this split from last year with Ireland’s Haud Mundus. On Oblivio Appositus, though, you can largely forget Svarthol’s washed-out expanses of proggy clean ambiance. Both bands are largely on the same hideous page here, of-fering a portmanteau of misshapen and grumbling depressive black met-al. And, if you are in the mood, it is a captivating forty minutes of music.Haud Mundus open with two contributions. The 13-minute monstrosity that is Veins of Stone is slithering and formless, repeatedly dying away into passages of abstract noise and sinister melody, before kicking up again into pulsating, barbarous riffing that evokes a more muscular Ruins of Bever-ast. It’s hard to find any real structure to it, but perhaps this doesn’t really matter if you are craving the aural equivalent of being dragged through a thorny ditch by your hair, for the entire duration of an icy winter night. And that’s why you buy sort of thing, isn’t it? Forever Desiccate the Seed initially seems more shapely, opening with some almost Opeth-ian 6/8 melodic fire, but this too derails again and again into ghastly catacombs of hissing death sound effects and grimly mumbling clean melodies.

Not to be outdone, Wormlust follows this Lovecraftian weird-ness with something quite similar. This Icelandic project’s contribu-tions are an exceptionally dark brace of tracks, winding slowly through crawling, dissonant riffs and dripping, fuzzy ambiance to create some-thing quite spectacularly horrible. The Larvean Inauguration opens with a formlessly writhing mess of hazy black metal guitar and rusty percussion, building up a kind of shambling steam into a decayed pro-cession of groaning non-riffs. I can’t think of anything which just sounds as unrelentingly pestilential, and as cacklingly otherworldly. If you search, you will find melodies here, sometimes touching ones, but don’t listen to it for that reason. If you pay attention you will also find riffs, often crunching and menacing, but don’t listen to it for that rea-son, either. Listen to Oblivio Appositus because it is a frightening record, which evokes unfathomable cosmic horror in your mind as powerfully as any film or literature. This is what black metal should really be about.

-Metalreviews, 2011.

Now this has become my latest drug. The split release “Oblivio Ap-positus” of irish Haud Mundus and Icelandic Wormlust is difficult to put into words. Haud Mundus presents insight into the failed spir-it of man, while Wormlust offers an indescribable passage into oth-erworldly desolation. This collaboration between both sees its share of atmospheric metal riffing and long, beautiful passages of ambiance.

Haud Mundus’s two tracks are quite magnificent examples of the balance possible between the black and ambient genres. “Veins of Stone” is over 13 minutes, opening with a cavernous cacophony of morbid gloom and ringing hammer-like strikes, from which a slicing, huge guitar tone soon erupts, and becomes even huger as the duo lumbers through a num-ber of devious, crashing poles. “Forever Desiccate the Seed” is briefer, at around 8 minutes, but its also denser and faster, more of a traditional black metal at first, then branching out into a number of ambient seg-ues. The production used by Haud Mundus is massive and accessible, a sure sign that the band could be taken very seriously in the future.

Wormlust, too, has adopted a more bold if calamitous sense for production. Truly, this is a frightening experience, Lyngdal’s full, bloodied throat casting a ghastly pallor over the surging threads of “Surge - About the Death of a God” and the dusky, swelling phan-tasm that is “The Larvean Inauguration (Or: A Feast for the Animal of Reflection)”. Also the artwork for “Oblivio Appositus” is beauti-ful. Be the privileged one to own not only this beautiful Digipack but a splendid piece of sonic art here. One of the best BM releases i heard so far, although it’s release is from 2009(!). Highly Recommended!

-Forever cursed, 2011.

one song demo, nasty atmospheric black metal from Iceland. ran-dom kind of wanky rock parts towards the middle/end that ac-tually are pretty sweet. formerly known as Wolfheart. dig it.

-Hate your species, 2009.

“Icelandic Wormlust was previously known as Wolfheart, having re-leased several demos in the past. With the change of name has come a shift in tone, and for this s/t demo the band has produced a sin-gle 12 minute track that travels from droning, aggressive black met-al to periods of stark majesty across a desolate grey landscape.

“Seven Paths” is quite good and hopefully an omen for what is to come. The guitars are churning vortices of disturbing chords, and whenever the band breaks for some sort of interlude we are treated with introspective guitar work and ringing explorations. The vocals are hoarse and troubling, like someone whispering at you from a sew-er while the sounds are amplified. I’ve been exposed to a great many underground black metal acts touting atmosphere or ambience, but Wormlust sounds quite original. Well worth tracking down this demo.”

-Autothrall, 2010.

Demo edito dalla Volkgeist Prod. ci racconta le evoluzioni sonore del pro-getto Wolfheart. Questo era infatti il primo nome del combo fino al 2008. Questa la line-up del progetto : H.V Lyngdal – tutti gli strumenti; Wann voce. Combo proveniente da Reykjavík (Islanda) e Londra (Inghilterra) ci propone un particolarissimo black metal con tematiche che vanno dal-la disperazione pura alla morte. Il gruppo si forma nel 2003 e nello stesso anno ci regala il primo demo, ne seguieranno poi altri due nel 2004 e nel 2006 per giungere al nuovo lavoro del 2009. Con questo ultimo la-voro (il loro quarto demo) ci propongono una lunga ed articolata com-posizione di dodici minuti che da il titolo al demo. ”Seven Paths ” è, come dicevo prima, l’unica traccia del demo. Si tratta di uno splendido brano che ci porta, fin dal principio, direttamente nel mondo, arcano e senza speranza, propostoci dal combo islan ese. Dopo un’introduzione sulfurea di appena trenta secondi, l’ascoltatore viene subito risucchiato nel vor-tice sonoro prodotto dal duo islandese. Puro black metal tirato, violento e particolarmente intenso. Per circa un minuto non troviamo nessuna variazione compositiva e stilistica. Dopodiché il pezzo si fa sempre più claustrofobico e opprimente, assieme alla voce sussurrata e deprimente. Dopo un urlo disumano, troviamo il primo vero stacco, la prima pausa del brano, attorno al terzo minuto. Dopo la pausa, l’atmosfera del brano, complice un ottimo arpeggio chitarristico, torna sulfurea e trasognante (seppur sempre opprimente). Dal quinto minuto il pezzo riprende quota e torna ai fasti velocissimi iniziali. Puro black metal tirata e sparato in fac-cia, condito da uno scream-vocals sussurrato che infonde nell’ascoltatore un’angoscia incredibile. Il black metal dissonante creato dal duo è molto particolare, oserei dire unico nel suo genere. Con lo scorrere del tempo sarà un continuo di cambi di tempo, ritmo e sfumature musicali. Eccezi-onali gli inserimenti di chitarra e basso, assolutamente rivedibile la bat-teria programmata e il cantato che è sempre sussurrato-parlato, mentre in alcuni parti uno scream duro e crudo avrebbe senz’altro reso meglio. Ma sono dettagli proprio per cercare la pulce nell’uovo, per intenderci.Un’unica traccia, un viaggio lungo oltre dodici minuti.Un black metal dissonante che marchia in modo indelebile l’onesto lavoro del gruppo. L’evoluzione sonora dei Wolfheart è innegabile e questo lavoro è la prova della loro maturazione artistica.

-D85, 2010.

Extremely solid split debut, featuring two tracks each from strong up-and-comers. There is a slight contrast in the styles presented here, with Haud Mundus putting more emphasis on atmospheric dissonance and Wormlust clearly going for a more straightforward output (in comparison, their offering is anything but straightforward in a larger context), though they mix really well and still manage to bridge their sides with common themes and sounds. Mesmerizing riffs and passages, lots of tempo changes, haunting vocals. Pro-duction is crisp and natural, everything sounds just the way it’s supposed to.

It’s a true pearl, well worth checking out for any fan of bands that play more technical and atmospheric black metal.

-Madbringer, 2010.

Pretty awesome washed out atmospheric BM. I prefer the Worm-lust side, though it is probably the more straightforward of the two bands here. Anyone into the likes of Weakling, Xasthur, and any of the less riffy, more hypnotic black metal should probably check this one out. Looking forward to full lengths from both bands!

-Manbient, 2010.

Uncompromising, yet varied single track EP, where monolithic, powerful black metal blasts intertwine with more atmospheric, even droning passag-es. While the latter remind me of sludgy Jesu shoegaze pop, the metal parts are simply crushing your head, thanks to unusual drumming style, similar to chaotic patters of Deathspell Omega, but also due to strange, whispering vocals and interesting guitars, which blend into pitch-shifting knob work and slo-mo madness. I hope they experiment more on further releases!

-necro666.

Everybody and their mother is talking about atmospheric black met-al these days. Sure enough, there’s a tidal wave of bands trying to get their piece of the pie, by throwing in some ambient keyboard nois-es and drag their otherwise uneventful songs out. As a result they get passed off as atmospheric black metal. And everybody is happy. Ex-cept this guy here. I worry about the “genre” getting played out all the while coming across far too many acts that think they have a for-mula and the end result is equally as inspiring as an empty cereal box. Iceland’s WORMLUST is Hafsteins Lyngdal’s latest outburst within the realm of extreme music. It’s is also a project he seems to be most involved in and content with these days. And it shows on Seven Paths. Lyngdal effortlessly knits together a soundscape, a journey if you will, that has an engaging beginning, and a natural and fulfilling conclusion. Being a long, one track body of music there is plenty to take away from it. It’s haunting and atmospheric qualities jump at you at first and hook in you but repeated listens will re-veal successful layering that makes this such a powerful piece. Lyngdal’s way of expressing his ideas is more thoughtful, sparse, carefully timed and brooding than most of the stuff in this genre as of late. He trims down rather than over-loads. Thus each sound and each riff is counted for. The composition does not, like some other bands, hide shortcomings behind a wall of endless channels, sounds and multi-layered arrangements. The essentials are out in the open - na-ked - for a lack of a better word. The shortcomings are almost non-existent. I’d prefer a richer drum sound on future releases though. Were it not for his sensitivity to smart song writing, this ap-proach might expose this lack thereof. But in WORMLUST’s case it does the opposite. It highlights said sensitivity, and ultimate-ly, this young musicians talent and understanding of the art form. Black metal enthusiasts with a tad conservative streak need not avoid. The “true” factor is present via the monotonous blast-beats and simple riffage. I like the tasty reverb on the guitar, giving them a feel of hollowness yet filling out the crease just right. Specific moment of “true” is one calm/slow-into-

-fast section transition, using a simple cue of 1,2,3,4, snare break. Fantastic! The keyboards and all additional ambient sounds do not saturate the sound space. Rather, they add something eerie instead of fighting the songs. On top of that are the cold, hoarse and dynamic vocals. Screech-ing one moment, howling the next, showing a larger range than I’m used to in the genre. In doing all this, even the “true” elements are refreshing. Seven Paths is not complicated nor is it technical. It is demanding and stimulating. One section is particularly memorable and evil. A single string riff, minor notes a plenty, climbing up, crossing frets with no regard for the tempo of the drums, backed up with low-pitched moaning voices. Seri-ously. It’s like a maelstrom of demons approaching. Unsettlingly brilliant. Another stroke of progressive thinking is the part with buzz saw riffing, played over drums that slow down and go off-tem-po on purpose just to fuck with you. Twisted little detail there that you can’t ignore nor help be impressed by. It takes courage. Seven Paths is remarkably cohesive considering its pro-gressive nature. Presenting it as one track, connected by flu-ent transitions was a wise decision indeed. Sporadic its not. WORMLUST has my attention and then some. Get this demo and watch this space. Something enigmatically wicked is burrowing to the surface here.

-Reykjavik Grapevine Magazine, Birkir Fjalar, 2010.

Following in much the same vein of the previous demos, this one (Svarthol) has taken it up a notch in terms of creativity, songwriting, and production. It’s apparently self-released, and I don’t know where you can get it, but scour the interwebs and you will surely find the download. Just one song, but one damn good song of somewhat depressive, and somewhat melodic black metal.

-Hammersmashed sound,2010.

Iceland’s Wormlust was Hafsteins Lyngdal’s latest outburst within the realm of extreme music, he now plays in Pestuus, another cold Anti-Christiani-ty Black Metal act. But Wormlust was a project he seemed to be most in-volved in. Wormlust effortlessly knits together a soundscape, a journey if you will, that has an engaging beginning, and a natural and fulfilling con-clusion. In this “Seven Paths” Demo, its haunting and atmospheric quali-ties, jump at you at first and hook in you but repeated listens will reveal successful layering that makes this such a powerful and cohesive piece.

“Seven Paths” is quite good as all material released by Wormlust. The guitars are churning vortices of disturbing chords, and whenever the sound breaks for some sort of interlude we are treated with introspective guitar work and ringing explorations and Lyngdal’s vocals are hoarse and trou-bling, like the cold icelandic wind whispering thru the desolated fields. I’ve been exposed to a great many underground black metal acts touting atmos-phere or ambience, but Wormlust, thru its originality, has really caught my attention. Something enigmatically wicked is burrowing to the surface here.

-Forever cursed, 2011.

This is the obscure product of an (at present) one man band from Ice-land; a demo recording that according to the project’s website threat-ens to combine with 2009’s Seven Paths to form the first ever Worm-lust LP. That is an enticing prospect, because this is the kind of esoteric release that could drive you slightly mad. Svarthol is a single track of ambient black metal, 16 minutes long, which has really captured my imagination. It combines moody atmospherics with perplexing compo-sitional ideas into a feverish quarter-hour of music that keeps you in-tently focused on the sinister visions that it vivdly narrates, a short sto-ry of isolated insanity and desolate horror expressed through sound.So let me try and take you through some of this. We open with a slow heartbeat, and a crystal-clear wash of meandering guitar reverberations. This feels both warm but intensely uneasy, the latter sensation winning out when this fades suddenly out, to be replaced by uncomfortable, form-less whistling sounds. Like The Clangers in a 1950s mental asylum. But now jagged, hoarse black metal starts to claw at the sound emitting from your speakers, like an uncomfortable memory under failing suppres-sion. This isn’t a blistering, pit-igniting entry that scatters the ambient cobwebs. Instead, it falteringly ejaculates distorted noise before abrupt-ly stopping, and then frantically grasping again, eventually establishing itself as a lumbering wall of sound; non-riffs awkwardly shifting beats and pitch like Deathspell Omega lapsing into a vomit-flecked drunken stupor. And those whistling noises still whirr maddeningly overhead. As we progress deeper, Svarthol becomes something more recognis-ably- perhaps more conventionally- black metal, but still luxuriating in its more esoteric realms. I hear a little of The Ruins of Beverast in there; murky, oppressive progressions and ghostly blasting, soaked in fuzz and misery. The closing few minutes here resurrect the exhausted opening ambi-ance, but now introducing a hissing, pulsating drum machine and with it an alien, industrial feel. That is, until the whole piece is killed off by the very last minute of abrupt, buzzsaw black metal. Throughout, Svarthol is prone to such sudden trail offs and re-entries, and these add quite ap-propriately to the generally unstable mood this demo inflicts upon itself and the world around it. This is a bit of a shock, all told; a gripping and original piece of music from a project I hope to hear much more of soon.

-Metal reviews, 2010.

Waves lap at distant shores. Delayed guitars wash over sparse am-bient drones. A heartbeat hums its rhythm in solidarity… and is abruptly stopped. So begins the wild trip into Wormlust’s world of brilliant, melancholic and atmospheric black metal. Wormlust is the vehicle of Iceland’s H.G. Lyngdal and one of con-temporary black metal’s truly underrated talents. With only a smattering of demos and a split with Ireland’s Haud Mundis under his belt thus far, 2010´ss offering, Svarthol continues to promise of more genius to come. Svarthol is 16 minutes and 37 seconds of mind-bending and nauseating experimentation. The peaceful introduction gives insight into the moments of beauty that Wormlust are all too capable of creating, but the quiet is soon shattered by waves of atonal and warped distortion, while an eerie slide gui-tar slices through the cacophony. Wormlust weaves between full on assaults and oppressive ambience with ease, often descending into complete silence. These moments of respite place a narrative of sorts over the pro-ceedings, guiding the listener through different stages of Lyngdal’s per-sonal hell. That’s almost exactly how it feels to behold Svarthol; this is not an uplifting experience at any rate. The whispered murmurings of a madman scrape over a composition that musters bewilderment, frustra-tion and pure malevolence. While this is by no means a ‘depressive black metal’ release, it does want to drag you into the depths of melancholy. But moments of fleeting anthemic beauty do rear out of Wormlust’s vor-tex of sound, all the more exciting when your ears catch hold of one. This has to be heard to be believed. A fucking brilliant release, I am all aboard the hype train and hope that we are treated to more of Lyn-gdal’s aural insanity VERY SOON. The cover is a work of art in itself as well.

-Lurkers path,2010.

1 demo track of really well done Depressive Black Metal with bits of Doom and Nordic style Black Metal This works in the mellow, serene sounds just as well as the bombastic heavy elements. Warm guitar tone with a nice big, loud and downward spiraling feeling. Gets pretty fast & layered around 11:14. Vocals are extended, distorted howls that come and go – not far from San Francisco’s own Leviathan. Svarthol is broken into move-ments and moods that exhude endless tundras and landscapes with little to no human intervention. Wormlust is the sole work of Ice-lander H.V. Lyngdal. This is his/their 4th release overall (3 demos and a split with Irish BM band Haud Mundus). VERY recommended

-KSU stanford, 2010.

The latest Wormlust demo, ‘Svarthol’, is a beauty. Listening to this 16:36 minute opus is like being sucked into a black hole and flailing around inside it until it has chewed you up and spit you out into another dimen-sion. Move you it will.

-Reykjavik Grapevine magazine, 2010.

IV. Kollvörpun.

Eliminating barriers.

Kollvörpun* , is a creative device which for aesthetical reasons has some motifs in common with old age witchcraft. It is also a method by which the intent is to override a mind that is either riddled with doubt or lack of ideas towards an artistic project. The construction of the system itself is simple but has been proven effective and rewarding. But if you trivial-ize the process and do not take it in with an open mind then the you as an participant have already tainted the outcome with your doubtful mind and rendered it useless. It is intended to create specific bounda-ries and spaces to work within because often by creating these constric-tion and following them is it when we most often seem to destroy them. When we have chosen which piece to follow we then burn it immedietly in the tradition of medieval curses to amplify the experience and also the intent behind the creation that is about to take place.

Steps:

1.Divide a piece of paper into six sections

2.Write a description on one side and a prime color or the other 3.Tear the paper in six sections

4.Try to randomize the selection of which sheet you receive.

5.Burn the note

Descriptions can be either actions or descriptions of visual ideas.If on side is an action then it negates the prime colour.

Examples of the interaction of visual ideas and prime colours:Scattered ashes/Black, Swamp/brown, Ghostly arms/Grey, Burial mound/green.Examples of action: Minimalize, Destroy everything but the flourishes, Do

it without hesitation, The mistakes are the thing itself.

WRMLST