Lustmord

The Word As Power features vocal contributions from ex-Swans member Jane Jarboe and Tool’s Maynard James Keenan among others. Fitting in neatly with the bleakly beautiful aesthetic that the label has cultivated across releases from Raime, Vatican Shadow, Tropic Of Cancer, the album uses “voices, electronics, immense sub-bass, field recordings and other acoustic phenomena harnessed and arranged to stimulate feelings of dread and desolation, certainly, but also escape, renewal and rebirth”.

Supposedly in production for five years, the album’s theme seems to concern the power of the word, “as written – signs, ciphers, symbology, semantics, etymology – and as spoken – myths, mantras, chants, invocation and evocation,” with the press release cryptically stating: “Those looking to properly decode the subject matter of the album are advised to study Simon Fowler’s fiendishly elaborate, double-spread cover illustration.”

• 1 Babel
• 2 Goetia
• 3 Chorazin
• 4 Grigori
• 5 Andras Sodom
• 6 Abaddon
• 7 Y Gair