YMMV / Deathspell Omega

• Alternate Character Interpretation: What role does God play in the trilogy, exactly? There's some indication in certain songs and in their interview with the Ajna Offensive that he's just as bad as Satan, if not even worse, being a "god of terror", punishing the world as a whole for their transgressions, while other songs suggest that he's ultimately impotent and unable to stop the corruption within the human race, and has simply left them to their own devices.
  • The band themselves, not so much in the present but earlier in their career. Were they really sincere in espousing evil, or were they simply playing devil's advocate, if you will, for humanity itself? The term "devil's advocate" (advocatus Diaboli), we might recall, originated in Catholicism as a popular name for the Promoter of the Faith (promotor fidei), who argued against a candidate's sainthood, searching for character flaws or misrepresentation of evidence that might otherwise have gone unnoticed. The band actually explicitly stated that shattering belief in humanity's benevolence was one of their goals with The Furnaces of Palingenesia in the Bardo Methodology interview (without actually using the term "devil's advocate"; passage reproduced below); perhaps this was their purpose all along, and they simply took the role literally, as a rather extreme form of Kayfabe Music. One might also note that they have repeatedly cited the Marquis de Sade, a writer whose works have often been misinterpreted as endorsing the depravity they depict, as one of their biggest literary influences (perhaps second only to Georges Bataille, a writer who himself regarded Sade as his biggest influence). In any case, if the following passage discussing Furnaces is taken to refer to their earlier works as well (the antecedent is ambiguous enough that "it" could be plausibly read to refer to either just Furnaces or to their entire discography), it reframes them in quite a different light:
    "It acts like a mirror and some may, predictably, not like what they see – if they see anything at all – because it contributes to shatter a myth that’s so central to stability both on an individual and civilisational level: the impervious necessity to believe that what we do is just, that we are just, that good and evil in intent and deed are as distinct as night and day. That what we do is condoned either by God or whatever man-made order that’s taken precedence – whose exceptionalism is of course indisputable and acts like a secular religion. Those who missed the religious nature of the ideology of progress, nationalism, Marxism, basically any discourse based on a human collective from an essentialist point of view, up to Milton Friedman’s approach to capitalism and the potential of a good narrative to befuddle the masses, Pied Piper of Hamelin-style – haven’t been paying much attention to their surroundings. In short, one of the questions emerging at the end of the process reads as follows: how much have YOU already surrendered to the Devil? How many of the depicted mechanisms have YOU unconsciously made your own, thus how infected and corrupt are YOU? People often greatly overestimate their innocence – the louder the virtue signalling, the higher the odds – but it takes a frank and courageous character to admit to that."
• Archive Panic: Not the band themselves, although with eight albums and several EPs, splits, and compilations, their discography is probably approaching this size. But if you take it upon yourself to collect all the releases featuring their assumed current or former members, good luck. Mikko Aspa alone has around a dozen projects, many of which have dozens of releases. Shaxul is also quite prolific. The related project Hirilorn, which featured Hasjarl and Shaxul (and original drummer Yohann Pasquier, who only appears on Deathspell's demo) before they formed Deathspell Omega, will also be of interest, though at least the 2017 three-CD collection Litanies of Annihilation provides a near-complete overview of Hirilorn's work (and, as of 2022, hasn't yet inflated to ridiculous prices on the used CD market).
• Awesome Art: Almost all of their album covers, particularly Paracletus.
  • Synarchy of Molten Bones also has some extremely impressive looking artwork.
  • The album booklets have their fair share, too. Fas and Kénôse particularly stand out for this.
  • The Furnaces of Palingenesia keeps up the trend. The cover is worthy of Gustave Dore.
  • The band's longtime artist Timo Ketola tragically passed away at age 45 in 2020 of leukaemia, but the band's tradition of gorgeous artwork nonetheless persists: The Long Defeat ships with an incredibly eye-catching (and symbolism-laden) mural some two metres long.
• Awesome Moments: The entire Bardo Methodology interview is this on at least a meta level. After over a decade of silence from the band, with the exception of their music, they finally spoke up again, with their spokesman revealing more about himself than ever before. It's probably the closest we've ever gotten to an inside look at Deathspell Omega. It can also viewed as a bigger moment of awesome for the band to dispel all the allegations towards them without removing their anonymity. And even more awesome? There's a second interview in the works.
  • A meta moment on the band's part here as well, since they're native French speakers, but the interview was conducted in English, meaning that they're more fluent in their second (at least) language than many people ever become in their first.
• Awesome Music: Everything they've recorded since 2004, at the bare minimum.
• Broken Base:
  • Whether or not Mikko Apsa is a member of the band (session or current) is the subject of one, due (again) to his far-right political involvements. Many fans consider him to be merely a session vocalist; there are even Epileptic Trees suggesting that he isn't even a member anymore due to the newer vocal-style off of Synarchy onwards, with some believing Hasjarl, Spica of S.V.E.S.T., or even Franck Hueso (of Carpenter Brut) is the vocalist for the band. The fact there's no actual concrete evidence of Aspa's involvement (with some fans feeling the allegations towards the band is just simply because it's been widely accepted that Aspa is/was a member) doesn't help either. And even after that, the (apparent) inclusion of Mortuus of Funeral Mist and Marduk (the latter of whom are often accused of supporting Neo-Nazism due to their heavy usage of WWII imagery, though they themselves have denied this^note Marduk has generally employed Artistic License – History by switching the Nazis' victims in their songs from Jews to Christians) and M. of Mgla (also accused of the same due to M's old noise project) as guest spots only upset those from the last controversy more. Considering everything we've seen, though, it may have been invoked by the band. (For what it's worth, there are also Epileptic Trees suggesting that Silenius of Summoning and Abigor also provides vocals on the album; Summoning have sharply criticised fascism and NSBM over the years.)
    • The band themselves seem to comment on this in their Bardo Methodology interview. Although this passage doesn't name any of the band members, it's likely a reference to Aspa's involvement in the project, suggesting that they strongly disagree politically but still work together for the sake of their music:
      "A minority of the collective’s contributors – shall we say, parts of the second circle – who’ve been invited to partake because of their incredible talents as musicians are involved with earthly politics, but stand on completely opposite ends of the political spectrum and are therefore irreconcilable political foes. Were it not for dialogue on the grounds of transgressive art, they’d be shooting each other. That tension is what interests us. It’s also an echo of more complex days – times when childhood friends Aragon the communist, Malraux the Gaullist and Drieu La Rochelle the fascist, while never reneging on their respective irreconcilable combats, for years lost neither the ability for sincere and profound dialogue nor their admiration for each other’s unique talents."
    • Overall, the Bardo interview also makes the band's political sentiments plain: they (with the presumed exception of Aspa) are opposed to totalitarianism. They also express explicit opposition to the despoilment of the environment and nuclear war, and refer multiple times to the Doomsday Clock being at 23:58.
    • The Long Defeat certainly leads credibility to the interpretation of the core members as being anarchists, and could even be taken as outright confirmation: passages of the fable explicitly condemn hierarchies and the violence used to enforce them.
      “When your kind tries to impose sense upon the absurd, it is carried out through hierarchy. And since your hierarchies are ironclad, it must be enforced with arms. Tribe, class, caste, creed… words worth their weight in gold to whomever acquires a taste for blood and tears. Golden keys to swing wide open the very gates of Hell.”
  • There are also significant Broken Bases regarding the stylistic shifts of The Long Defeat:
    • Some listeners have been disappointed that the band released an album with slower tempi and less dissonance, while others have argued that there were always slow and melodic portions even in the band's heaviest albums like Synarchy and Fas, and that the band had probably taken the complex, dissonant material as far as they felt they could take it.
    • It also seems that the band members enjoyed the live recording process of The Furnaces of Palingenesia and wanted to continue it. One could argue that much of the band's second-era material was artificially constructed in the studio, and that Furnaces and The Long Defeat's content is by contrast more natural and organic, since you're hearing what the band actually played as they played it.
    • The use of more vocalists on The Long Defeat has also been the subject of a Broken Base not merely over the (alleged) political sympathies of the (alleged) vocalists, but over whether the album is better or worse for featuring them.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • After three unrelentingly complex and heavy albums plus everything in between, Paracletus ends with the harrowing "Apokatastasis Pantôn" that simply never lets up until the very last few seconds, leaving the listener to ponder and relax after possibly having their faith in God and Man utterly shattered.
  • Most of their albums have at least one example of this. The guitar passage that concludes "A Chore for the Lost" on Fas - ite, maledicti, in ignem aeternum is a good example, providing a massive release near the end of an album full of tension. (Of course, then the final track closes the album with a nightmarish orchestral sting.) Some of their EPs have examples as well; "The Crackled Book of Life" is no doubt the best example of this.
• Complete Monster: The unnamed narrator from The Furnaces of Palingenesia leads the totalitarian political faction known as the Order. The Order uses fear and paranoia to force absolute loyalty from all citizens, encouraging citizens to turn in their own loved ones for suspected crimes or even kill each other for perceived disloyalty. As a result, countless innocents are subjected to horrific punishments or murdered. The narrator is proudly aware of the terrors that the Order inflicts upon the world and in fact pushes it forward to the point society completely collapses under his rule.
• Covered Up: "Malign Paradigm" is much better known than Malign's "Ashes and Bloodstench", which it's based on.
• Creator Worship: They're one of the most revered bands in black metal, and many fans consider them to be nothing less than musical geniuses. Their skill with language is also frequently the subject of intense reverence, which has probably been taken up to eleven after their 2019 Bardo Methodology interviews and the 2020 Cult Never Dies interview.
• Creepy Awesome: One of the finest examples in black metal. It really helps that nobody has a clue who they are.
• Crosses the Line Twice: The fable accompanying The Long Defeat does this so much. It features Satan in the form of a diseased poodle the size of a bear and just goes off from that point.
  After disgorging a pile of human limbs, he begins chewing on them. The feast is accompanied by the sound of cracking bones. Noticeably delighted, he looks up and adds with a wink: “I love you.”
• Epic Riff: Many.
  • The jerky, whiplash inducing riff that hits like a ton of bricks around the 19 minute mark of "Diabolus absconditus." The song's main riff is also pretty gnarly, having a sinister and unclean sound that makes it one of their most unpleasant songs. In a good way.
  • Another very good example comes at the end of "II" on Kénôse. The way it gets faster in tempo and rises in pitch every time it's played makes it even more effective than it would be on its own (which would still have been highly effective). "III" then gives off what may be the heaviest riff in their discography after a lengthy drone builds the tension to near unbearable levels, which combines with the demonically disorted vocals to invoke true musical hell.
  • The slithering, hypnotic riff around which "Second Prayer" is built makes the song feel like the soundtrack to a Human Sacrifice.
  • Every song on Paracletus has at least one, but special mention goes to the urgent, hellish melody that opens up "Epiklesis I" and the Recurring Riff that shows up in "Epiklesis II" and "Apokatastasis pantôn."
  • "The Crackled Book of Life" has one of their most melodic riffs to date, topped off with a haunting, King Crimson-esque guitar solo.
  • The first "Obombration" has a thunderous one following a lengthy Drone of Dread, which is a fitting introduction to the sheer hell of Fas - Ite.
  • Fas is really full of them throughout, but the closing of "A Chore for the Lost" is particularly noteworthy - the best way to describe it is as a guitar solo that manages to be comprised entirely of Epic Riffs. Except that it isn't even entirely a solo - there are multiple guitar parts overdubbed in many cases, and somehow they all manage to qualify as Epic Riffs.
  • Synarchy has a ton of them, particularly in the title track and "Onward Where Most With Ravin I May Meet." The one that opens "Internecine Iatrogenesis" has to count for something, too.
  • The Furnaces of Palingenesia doesn't disappoint on this front either. Just about every song has one, but "Imitatio Dei", "Standing on the Works of Slaves", and "Absolutist Regeneration" are standouts.
  • The Long Defeat may bring melody more to the forefront than it was in the band's second era, but the band hasn't shirked on the riff front. "Enantiodromia", "Eadem, sed aliter", and "Our Life Is Your Death" are particular standouts; the latter has an unexpected groove to it, something almost unheard of in the band's previous work (a case could be made for parts of "Have You Beheld the Fevers?").
• Epileptic Trees: Mostly regarding the identities of the band members and the meaning behind their lyrics and concepts.
  • In particular, it's commonly believed that the membership listed on Metal Archives is years out of date (apparently email exchanges with erstwhile vocalist Shaxul were the source) and that the band incorporates contributions from other musicians; S.V.E.S.T., a two-man band with whom they've released a split LP, is the most commonly cited band in these theories, with Abigor being another fairly common citation. Given the fact that DsO also released a split with Clandestine Blaze before the latter band's sole member Mikko Aspa joined, the S.V.E.S.T. theory isn't particularly far-fetched. (The fact that S.V.E.S.T. hasn't released new music since 2008 is also sometimes cited as supporting evidence here.)
  • Above with the S.V.E.S.T. theory, a newer theory began that Franck Hueso (of Carpenter Brut) is actually the true front-man of Deathspell Omega and turned the project into his own one-man show. It's believed to be possible as following the revelation by Tobias Forge that he was the band's producer, some pointed out that during Deathspell's hiatus from 2012-2016 (after they had wrapped up their Trilogy/released Drought and with 2016 being the year they released Synarchy), Carpenter Brut became incredibly active. Again, it's all speculation, but it would seem possible, along with him working with Spica of S.V.E.S.T.; if S.V.E.S.T. itself was absorbed into Deathspell.
  • It almost feels like the band deliberately invoked this trope by featuring as many vocalists on The Long Defeat as they did. There's fairly widespread agreement that Mortuus/Arioch of Marduk and Funeral Mist is the main vocalist on the first track. Aspa probably appears on tracks two, four, and five, but he's likely not the only vocalist on any of them; there are Epileptic Trees over who the other vocalists are. Track five probably also features M. of Mgla. Several tracks probably feature Spica performing additional vocals, and he is likely the main vocalist on track three. It's also been suggested that Silenius of Summoning (and Abigor, a band Deathspell Omega have praised in interviews) may have contributed some vocal parts. Overall, it's not clear how many vocalists actually performed on the album, or what tracks feature which vocalists.
• Even Better Sequel: Fas - Ite and Paracletus are both generally agreed to be at least slightly better than Si monumentum (how much, and which one is better, depends upon one's tastes). This is also a fairly common opinion of Synarchy in comparison to their earlier work. May also apply to The Furnaces of Palingenesia, at least lyrically - many fans feel the band's focus on real-world issues has made their lyrics even more powerful.
  • Within the Shaxul era, Inquisitors of Satan is usually considered an improvement over Infernal Battles, and Manifestations 2002 is generally considered an improvement over that. Manifestations 2000-2001 and the Clandestine Blaze split often get thrown into this category as well.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception: Many, many fans are sick and tired of hearing others accuse the band of being fascists/Nazis due to the allegations towards Aspa and the heavy misconceptions of Furnaces. While most Deathspell Omega fans are fine if people aren't okay with the (as far as we know) partnership of Aspa with the band, they in particular aren't fond of others labeling the entire group as being Fascistic because of Aspa's vocal involvement. Bonus points if they dismiss the 2019 interview (as some have actually done).
• Fanon Discontinuity: Most fans tend to ignore the Shaxul era of the band, mainly since it didn't feature the band's esoteric style they became known until around the release of Si monumentum. Even those who do pay attention to it commonly consider it separately from the rest of the band's output, since it's so different in style from the band's later work; and they may still pay little/no attention to Infernal Battles, for reasons discussed under Surprisingly Improved Sequel.
• Fridge Brilliance: Their music arguably runs on this trope, due to their heavy reliance upon Genius Bonus and Viewers Are Geniuses. Some listeners have argued that they are one of the few black metal bands that actually address the full profundity of Christianity rather than just attacking a caricature of the religion, and some of their songs ("Carnal Malefactor" being a great example) come across as genuinely spiritual. The quiet parts of Fas are also a superb example of this trope - most listeners probably never actually hear them because they are mixed so quietly, but they add quite a lot to the songs.
• Friendly Fandoms: With several other black metal bands. There is a lot of overlap with S.V.E.S.T.'s fan base, particularly due to the Epileptic Trees suggesting that Darkkarma and Spica might have joined Deathspell Omega. Blut aus Nord is another one, since they're both weird, experimental French black metal bands who are fond of dissonance. There is a fair amount of overlap with the American band Jute Gyte as well, since sole member Adam Kalmbach is influenced by a number of the same 20th-century classical musicians that influenced Deathspell Omega, and has both a similar philosophical outlook and a similar composition style (dense, extremely dissonant riffing mixed with long compositions, plenty of Uncommon Time, and bizarre song structures, married to highly erudite lyrics that read more like philosophical essays than black metal lyrics).
• Genius Bonus: Their lyrics are stuffed with references to obscure bits of philosophy and esoterica, and probably make far more sense with prior knowledge of these subjects. The Synarchy of Molten Bones adds Greek mythology to the band's set of obscure referents, while The Furnaces of Palingenesia adds politics.
• Growing the Beard: Their first two albums are decent but fairly run of the mill black metal, although the second is quite a bit better than the first. However, Si monumentum is where the band really hit its stride.
• Heartwarming Moments: Yes, really. The 2019 interview ends with an affirmation that the band view themselves as standing on the shoulders of giants and, despite the pain that goes into creating art, it's worth it if they inspire a new generation of artists in the process.
  "See, we firmly believe in the motto of ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’. In other words, almost every great piece of art in history contains multiple worlds or interactions and the acknowledgment of the people who came before, those worthy of every praise and whose works scarred the world forevermore. It’s everything but the navel-gazing, frivolous narcissism our contemporaries revel in, because it demands that you humble yourself and learn and learn evermore. It is certainly not a matter of bland imitation but of paying your dues to people and works of exceptional fabric within the context of a work of singular nature which, unmistakenly, is your own. All the while paving the way for whatever or whoever may possibly come next. Within a line of work that primarily yields desolation, these transmissions of moments of grace are perhaps the only fully positive aspect – those rare moments during which some individuals rise to the firmament for a brief instant and the banal recedes in the face of a triumphant singularity."
  • Earlier in the interview, they also take a moment to geek out about some of their musical inspirations, which range from Napalm Death to Diamanda Galás to Nick Cave. It almost comes across as an Out-of-Character Moment.
  • To some extent, the whole interview, particularly on a meta level. Given their earlier interviews, which came across as clinically uninterested in the well-being of individuals or of humanity as a whole, if not outright revelling in suffering, it's a pleasant surprise to see how concerned they now are for the future of the planet and the plight of the downtrodden.
• I Knew It!:
  • The Bardo Methodology interview no doubt caused a lot of this amongst fans who (correctly) read The Furnaces of Palingenesia as a condemnation of authoritarianism. Amongst other things, the interview made the anti-authoritarian sentiments of the core of the band explicit, as well as the fact that there was an ideological rift within the band regarding "a minority of the collective’s contributors – shall we say, parts of the second circle – who’ve been invited to partake because of their incredible talents as musicians" (almost certainly a reference to Mikko Aspa). It is a superb complement to the album and a fantastic piece of writing in its own right.
  • Fans long suspected that the Technical Death Metal act Gorguts was an influence on Deathspell Omega, a suspicion that was explicitly confirmed in the Cult Never Dies interview.
  • It had long been rumoured that the drummer was Hasjarl's drummer. While this isn't complete confirmation, Apple Music began crediting songwriting on several of their albums to "Christian Bouché, Deathspell Omega, Stéphane Bouché, Sylvain Ranger" in 2023, suggesting that two of the band members are related.
• Memetic Mutation: "So where's the new Deathspell Omega release?" ^note Referring to the fact that the band hadn't released anything since 2012 and there had been no news from official sources on whether they were working on anything or, indeed, even still together. In late September 2016, the band finally announced a new album to be released in November, and despite being only twenty-nine minutes long, it became one of the most acclaimed metal releases of the year.
  • "Gorguts is the new Deathspell Omega".^note In the wake of 2016's Pleiades' Dust, which is considered to be stylistically similar to Deathspell Omega (Gorguts even cited Deathspell Omega as an influence on the EP), many people considered Gorguts to have filled the void left by the lack of a new Deathspell Omega release. Ironically, Gorguts are pretty widely believed to have been an influence on Deathspell Omega's work as well, particularly Fas.
  • Anything involving implied vocalist Mikko Aspa has become a joke around fans and non-fans.
• Misaimed Fandom: More of Misaimed Hatedom, as when The Furnaces of Palingenesia was released, detractors began to slam the band and accuse them of enforcing a "fascist/Nazi manifesto"...despite the fact the album is a blatantly obvious Deconstruction and borderline mocking perspective of a fascist order. It doesn't help those who criticize the album (and who use the believed theory of Aspa, Hasjarl and Khaos lineup) forget that if one does heavy research on Hasjarl, he comes off as an anarchist, the complete opposite of fascism.
  • Furnaces, if taken as an endorsement of totalitarianism, is also incredibly self-contradictory, not just when taken in isolation, but especially alongside the rest of the band's discography. The would-be dictator from whose perspective the lyrics are sung shows signs of awareness of this, but ultimately doesn't care: "When confronted with facts that would contradict our credo, we shall speak out even louder, invoke our Order with brazen words and march forward with the arrogance of the doubtless." There is certainly room for debate about whether the album's stance is nihilist, anarchist, or just broadly antiauthoritarian, but there are several lines suggesting that the album is deconstructing and denouncing totalitarianism rather than endorsing it^* For what it's worth, Georges Bataille, one of their primary lyrical influences, was an ardent Marxist who fiercely opposed fascism and wrote several essays deconstructing it both politically and psychologically. Of course, Mikko is still a... problematic figure, to put it mildly.
  • The interpretation of the album as an endorsement of fascism is officially Jossed by the Bardo Methodology interview. The core of the band explicitly opposes totalitarianism of all stripes, while acknowledging that a "minority of the collective's contributors" in the "second circle...stand on completely opposite ends of the political spectrum and are therefore irreconcilable political foes".
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • The chant segment of "Carnal Malefactor", despite also being Paranoia Fuel, also qualifies as this.
  • The climactic guitar passage of "A Chore for the Lost", which arguably qualifies as one of the most powerful moments of musical catharsis in metal history.
  • The horns at the end of "Renegade Ashes".
  • The outro of "Phosphene". A truly epic ending to such a brutal and unrelenting song that almost comes off as a breather.
• Nightmare Fuel: Has its own page now.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: A lot of people in 2019 have decried Deathspell Omega due to (alleged) vocalist Mikko Aspa's more... off-putting projects such as Clandestine Blaze (a Deathspell esque project but with a more raw sound), his own alleged anti-Zionist comments, and his borderline Squicky porno-grind projects like Creamface and his Power Electronics project Nicole 12^note Which to his credit, he cancelled in 2011 following the birth of his daughter., which was themed entirely around pedophilia.
• Paranoia Fuel: The interludes on Fas - Ite, the first five minutes of Kénôse, and to a lesser extent the Old Church Slavonic chant on "Carnal Malefactor". Not to mention their lyrics, which The Furnaces of Palingenesia takes up to eleven by turning the band's attention to the mundane world rather than metaphysics. Their stance isn't any more optimistic on this front than it was on any of the others.
• Squick: The A God Am I section of "Diabolus absconditus", which is quite NSFW. (Fitting, since it's taken almost verbatim from Georges Bataille's Madame Edwarda.)
  She was sitting there; she had one leg stuck up in the air. To open her crack yet wider, she used her fingers to draw the folds of skin apart. And so her "old rag and ruin" loured at me, hairy and pink, just as full of life as some loathsome squid.
  "Why", I stammered in a subdued tone, "why are you doing that?"
  "You can see for yourself", she said, "I am God".
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Given the band's legendary status among black metal fans, Infernal Battles is commonly considered a disappointing first album - not bad, necessarily, but hardly up to the standards the band established later on. The first half features a rather bland drum machine, the second half is a demo with awful recording quality, and all of it is unusually derivative by the band's standards. Inquisitors of Satan fixes all of these problems. Most fans agree that Si monumentum is their Growing the Beard moment, though.
• Tear Jerker: They have a few examples. See here.
• Viewers Are Geniuses: See Genius Bonus. They have said that their music is meant to be studied, not merely listened to. Many of their lyrics will be almost entirely incomprehensible without a strong background in subjects such as theology, philosophy, and literature, and their music is not exactly accessible either.