London’s Lychgate burst onto the black metal landscape in 2013 with their self-titled debut. It was a wild and fully-realized platter of dissonant weirdness that loved its keyboards and organs, but never to the extent that they got in the way of the heavily funeralized black metal. Even with some rather obvious connections – Negative Plane, certain forms of Blut Aus Nord – it was still fairly unique. It felt like being suddenly transported into an empty, dimly lit gothic cathedral, the music dominating all sounds, but not to the extent that your own fear was silenced.
From the very get-go, Lychgate knew how to craft a vibe. But if the expansion of their sound on An Antidote for the Glass Pill is any indication, sitting still was not an option. They knew their rabbit hole went far deeper, and that reaching the bottom required unchaining themselves from any remaining constraints. It was time to really get weird.
And weird they get. By increasing the use of the organ, going with less conventional song structures, upping the prog factor of the riffs, and pounding the album with all sorts of extra ingredients (tympani, chamber piano, chants), Lychgate has almost completely exited the realm of the ordinary. To put it simply, An Antidote for the Glass Pill is utterly confounding, but to the right ears, it is just as thrilling. It is an album for which it is difficult to think of a true stylistic parallel, both in terms of philosophy and execution, despite many of the individual elements existing for centuries.
But let’s step back for a second.
The pipe organ has existed in some form or another since Ancient Greece, evolving into instruments so gargantuan that they were the perfect backdrops for the megalomaniacal medieval church. The sound is unmistakable: thin, sustained tones, particularly useful for dissonance, and when employed to ultimate effect, imposing. This was the instrument of medieval priests forcing piety onto the peasantry, of the crusades being funded by selling plenary indulgences as tickets to heaven, and of course, of “Toccata and Fugue in D minor.”
Perhaps only Bach could have ever imagined that the instrument of his most famous work would be warped into something as unworldly as An Antidote for the Glass Pill. And more than any other of the numerous elements employed by Lychgate on the album, it is the pipe organ that dominates center stage, wrapping the album in a Baroque blanket. Without it, the drifting, maniacal song structures would seem needlessly random, while the moments of rather rocking guitar work would seem just that – rocking – as opposed being brief flashes of normality desperately calling out of the madness.
(It should go without saying that Lychgate probably isn’t transporting around some fully-sized, massive pipe organ, and that the sounds heard on An Antidote for the Glass Pill are likely produced by its more modern “church organ” offspring. Still, the sounds and vibe are the same, thankfully.)
In many ways, Lychgate has fully realized the “musical Baphomet” status to which their debut album pointed. An Antidote for the Glass Pill is both god and the devil; melodious and deeply discordant; lacking in aggression but strangely brutal; dramatic and theatrical and yet deadly serious; occasionally rockin’ but completely in opposition to such a mindset. Throughout all 50 minutes, these various dualities are at work, with each spin peeling away more of the countless layers.
“I Am Contempt” expands and contracts through both tonal techniques and masterful drumming (T. J. F. Vallely is a beast throughout), while moments of “still dissonance” are among the album’s most unsettling. “Letter XIX” is downright demented, becoming more so throughout before bludgeoning the listener with a unified hammering from all instruments, even after the jazzy, light-touch blasting eases you into a false sense of security. “Davamesque B2” re-emphasizes the band’s oft-doomy approach; “An Acousmatic Guardian” ups the bombast; “The Pinnacle Known to Sisyphus” ends the album in majestic splendor, echoing chants introduced in earlier tracks while offering touches of neoclassicism. This is a band that understands how to be outlandish by their very nature, and how to wield self-indulgence as a musical instrument.
Like vocalist/guitarist Greg Chandler’s long-running Esoteric, Lychgate also embraces the power of atmosphere. But where the funeral doom greats craft galactic spaces that go on for immeasurable distances, Lychgate’s atmosphere is finite, draped in an impenetrable shadow and amplified by the band’s mastery of the (near) emptiness. In a way similar to Deathspell Omega on Fas, Lychgate does not shy from this technique (“Play the rest,” your high school band director taught you). These moments are not so much respites from the maniacal bombardment as they are the band chewing on the suspense, and knowing the listener is held captive.
And deep down, when you are done dissecting all of the great riffs, surprise shred moments, deftly dancing instrumental interplay and great, varied vocals, something else kicks in: nostalgia. Not obnoxious, try-hard nostalgia, but a more indirect, likely even unintentional form. The tones and vibes throughout An Antidote for the Glass Pill will inevitably tickle the memories of certain listeners. The pipe organ is, after all, rather connected to the past in many ways. It might be that you’d once seen an old silent horror film, or that you once attended a Catholic Mass in a rather large, lavish American church. Maybe you just like wearing long robes and writing fan fiction about Vincent Price and Max von Sydow; that’s your business. Regardless, for many a listener, that extra layer will be quite active.
Of course, you don’t necessarily need to have had these experiences to enjoy the album. Nor do they ensure that you will like this bizarre, amorphous thing. But if it latches on in any way, it’s really a rather easy listen, even during its most jarring moments. That dichotomy might be what most defines the album: from its general lack of violent aggression to the odd song structures, An Antidote for the Glass Pill is usually not doing what you expect or even what you might think you want it to do. And yet, the whole thing is insanely satisfying, which is almost a mystery in and of itself.
Confounding in every possible way, Lychgate is not satisfied with merely finding the bottom of the rabbit hole. They came equipped with shovels.
