The 2013 release of the third and final The Devil’s Blood full-length, III: Tabula Rasa or Death and the Seven Pillars, will be forever tainted by the context of the subsequent suicide-by-overdose of the band’s founder and mastermind Selim Lemouchi, but even by the time the record came out, the band had broken up. Based in the Netherlands, and with a legacy there that continues to spread thanks to the likes of erstwhile The Devil’s Blood members Oeds Beydals and Ron Van Herpen — not to mention vocalist Farida Lemouchi, sister to Selim, whose singular voice was essential in conveying The Devil’s Blood‘s theatricality and thereby setting the course of European cult rock for years to come — The Devil’s Blood were only together for about seven years, but their work continues to resonate for those who’d dare take it on. In the case of III: Tabula Rasa or Death and the Seven Pillars, it is an alternately dense and sprawling inwardly-churning cosmic storm, with 22-minute opener “I Was Promised a Hunt” set up across side A of a 2LP like a wall to keep out all but the bravest of listeners, harnessing krautrock-derived repetitions, spacious echoes in the vocals of both Lemouchis and a nigh-opaque feeling of purpose behind its expression. By the time it’s nine minutes in, it’s almost gothic in its level of drama, and the atmosphere it creates is pervasive throughout subsequent tracks “The Lullaby of the Burning Boy,” “…If Not a Vessel?” and “In the Loving Arms of Lunacy’s Secret Demons” on side B or the second platter’s longer stretches in “Dance of the Elements” and “White Storm of Teeth” and the consuming/consumed finale “Tabula Rasa.” With the years of hindsight, it is a powerful and at times overwhelming listening experience.

“Overwhelming” simply because of its scope. The Devil’s Blood had already proven expansive at an increasing rate on their prior full-lengths, 2011’s The Thousandfold Epicentre (review here) and 2009’s The Time of No Time Evermore (review here), and even the formative 2009 Come, Reap EP (review here) as well as other itinerant short releases demonstrated the potential in their craft and style. III: Tabula Rasa or Death and the Seven Pillars, however, was simply working on another level. Refusing genre constraints, it was as much progressive as it was psychedelic, as much metal as dark heavy rock, and it was as much spirit and soul as it was tied to the earth as it was unwilling to do anything but soar. With guitar, bass, drum programming, vocals, music and lyrics and recording by Selim, vocals by Farida and a mix and master by Peter G. Kloos, it was nothing short of a vision manifested and turned into reality — such as it was — through songwriting of rare introspective urgency. Self-indulgent? You bet your ass. From the invocation of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” in the last movement of “I Was Promised a Hunt” down through the intertwining bass/guitar noodling of “In the Loving Arms of Lunacy’s Secret Demons” and the galloping final build and Floydian wash of “Tabula Rasa,” the seven-song/65-minute offering carried a sense of pushing The Devil’s Blood‘s sound as far as it could go — all the more in light of the band’s breakup. It was and is gorgeous and damaged, deeply human and otherworldly, and propelled as much by these conflicts as by Farida‘s operatic vocals.

A masterpiece, in other words, and the work to which everything The Devil’s Blood had done up to that point had been leading. Releasing through Ván Records in Europe and Metal Blade in the US as of the second album, they’d taken on increasing notoriety. They’d toured the States as well as Europe and were already seen as having some measure of influence, and that has only continued to grow as the years have passed and the wound of Selim Lemouchi‘s death has, if not healed — because it hasn’t; it looms over the songs on III and is inseparable from the album — then at least become less fresh with time. But it’s important to remember that came later. Selim had already moved on to Selim Lemouchi and His Enemies, and it was The Devil’s Blood‘s breakup that so much snapped their forward momentum. Metal Blade gave a cursory push as I recall, but really, what was to be done with III: Tabula Rasa or Death and the Seven Pillars if The Devil’s Blood weren’t a band anymore?

But that circumstance, bummer as it was, can’t now take away from the accomplishment that III: Tabula Rasa or Death and the Seven Pillars represents. In the barrage of verses throughout “White Storm of Teeth,” the final lines of the album are delivered thusly:

I fall into the spaceless space
The timeless time, the endless end
Neither here nor there, above or below
Into the night I go

Even this final statement seems to carry extra weight because of Selim‘s death. It made it all real and terrible, and even years later, it makes listening to III: Tabula Rasa or Death and the Seven Pillars harder — and the album is by no means easy listening anyhow, despite its melodic range. But the album also stands as a testament to how beautiful the work could be, and as time passes, that seems to come more into focus. One hopes it will continue to be the case.

Among the most touching live experiences I’ve ever witnessed was at Roadburn Festival in 2014 as Farida Lemouchi, Oeds Beydals and others took to the Main Stage as Selim Lemouchi’s Enemies and paid tribute to Selim little more than a month after his passing. By then, Beydals had already formed Death Alley and was ramping up momentum with that outfit, and other Job Van De Zande would join Dool while Ron Van Herpen continued on periodically with Astrosoniq and Rrrags, etc. Farida would remain unheard-from until 2019 when, again at Roadburn (review here) she appeared fronting Molasses with Beydals, Van Herpen, Van De Zande and other The Devil’s Blood associates in tow. A concurrent single was released in the form of Mourning Haze / Drops of Sunlight, but at the time it was a question as to whether or not the project — commissioned specifically for the festival — would continue, and certainly considering the emotional drain of performing essentially together without Selim there, especially on Farida Lemouchi, it’s easy enough to understand why. They have two live performances booked thus far for 2020: The Abyss Festival in Gothenburg, Sweden, on March 28, and Eros at Arms in Zürich on April 25. After that, your guess is as good as mine.

As always, I hope you enjoy.

Thanks for reading.

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I slept an extra half-hour this morning on a gamble that The Pecan: Toddlerian would also sleep late. It seems to have worked out thus far — quarter after six — but I expect him up at any minute. Nothing major, but I’m having a kind of minor outpatient surgical procedure done on my left leg later on, and they said no coffee beforehand — I could cry — and it was that much harder to get out of bed with the extra incentive of turning on the Chemex in the kitchen to make the first pot of the day. I had a protein bar and drank a bunch of water instead. Not nearly the same, but so it goes.

Rumor has it I’ll be laid up for a good portion of the weekend — at least tomorrow — so it seems like a good time to begin work on the Quarterly Review, which is precisely my intention. It’ll be next Monday through Friday, 10 reviews per day, 50 total, kind of putting a bow on 2019 and a little bit looking ahead to the months to come. It’ll be fun. Usually is, anyhow, by the time it’s finished.

There’s also a new Gimme Radio show today at 1PM Eastern listen here: http://gimmeradio.com.

I like doing that a lot, and I wonder if now that I’m back in NJ I might be able to volunteer at WFMU as a DJ. Think they’d take me? They sure as hell didn’t last time. I cut a voice sample and then never heard from Brian Turner again. He works at Gimme now. We email a lot. Go figure. Seems like a nice guy. I’ve never reminded him of the time I tried to join his staff. That was maybe 2007-2008. I was still at Metal Maniacs.

My illustrious career.

What a wreck.

I don’t have any New Year’s resolutions, and I frankly believe they’re bullshit, but it is important to set reasonable, attainable goals for oneself, and at some point in the next 12 months, I’d like to conceive of and begin a new book project. What does that look like? I have no idea. Could be a children’s book I’ll write in a day and spent two months revising to get the meter right. Could be a collection of essays I’ll map out and put together over the next couple years. Could be a compilation of stuff from on here. I don’t know. But I’d like to get something moving in that regard. I don’t think it’ll be fiction on the order of the first book. It started to feel too formulaic and “literary,” which, I’m sorry, but screw that. The universe needs my white-cis-male ass to be making literary proclamations like it needs a supermassive black hole in its infinitely expanding head.

So I’ve been thinking about that and will continue to do so and see where it takes me and where I take it. I’m sure I’ll find some way to keep you posted if you’re interested, if not here then on thee social medias.

Oh, and I put out the notion of doing a newsletter a bit ago and seemed to get a positive response. Then I signed up for MailChimp and forgot all about it when the holidays hit. Ha. Survival-mode came on. I’ll maybe get on that sooner or later if anyone really cares.

And speaking of the social medias, I put out word there that the Decade-End Poll was staying up an extra week. If you haven’t turned in a list or however many picks for your favorite records of the 2010s yet, please do so here.

It’s also my mother’s birthday tomorrow. Happy birthday, mom.

Alright, I think that’s everything.

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