An intro and an outro may mark the fragile edges of Selenophilic Invocations by Lolth — moments of respite, like breaths between storms — but what lies in between is pure, unrelenting chaos. Across five tracks, Lolth deliver Black Metal that is as grandiose as it is raw, a record that feels like it’s clawing its way out of the underworld with bleeding hands and a grin full of fangs.
From the very first riff, Selenophilic Invocations radiates a kind of primal power that’s hard to capture and even harder to fake. The blast-beats are merciless, hammering like a million suns going out at once beneath the constant churn of never-ending riffs that seem to spiral endlessly into the night sky. The vocals? Imagine someone screaming through a cheese grater while falling into a pit of serpents, and you’re halfway there. It’s abrasive, it’s harsh, and it’s beautiful.
But here’s where Lolth pull off something truly remarkable — for all its basement-born filth and lo-fi savagery, there’s an undeniable grandeur running through the record. It’s the sound of something massive being forced through the narrowest of tunnels, straining against its own limitations. You can practically hear the walls sweating under the pressure. This is Black Metal recorded in spirit, if not literally, on a busted cassette deck in the depths of hell — raw, immediate, and alive.
What separates Selenophilic Invocations from the pile of faceless, frostbitten imitators is that it feels monumental despite its stripped-down approach. There’s real atmosphere in the murk — a sense of moonlit vastness, of ancient rituals being performed in darkness, of loneliness howling across barren landscapes. The sound may be scoured clean of polish, but what’s left gleams with sincerity and power.
I’ve had this thing blasting at permanent ear-bleed level, and still it sounds distant, ghostly, like it’s emanating from somewhere just beyond mortal reach. And that’s the point — that’s the beauty. Selenophilic Invocations is the perfect contradiction: a monolithic sound trapped inside a raw, imperfect vessel. It’s a record that embraces the flaws and the hiss, the decay and distortion, as part of the ritual itself.
Selenophilic Invocations is available from the Lolth Bandcamp page.
CHOICE CUT: Chthonic Luminescence
BLACK METAL ARCHIVES VERDICT: A beautifully ugly slab of lunar-lit chaos — Selenophilic Invocations is proof that Black Metal doesn’t need perfection to reach transcendence. It just needs devotion, distortion, and the will to burn under the moon.
