There is a fine line between healthy interest, inquisitive passion and the advancing sequence of obsession, fixation, monomania and, ultimately, madness. Dutch avant-garde black metal adventurers Grey Aura straddled and explored that liminal space between sanity and dementedness with magnificent and mesmerizing results on their excellent 2021 release Zwart vierkant and have now returned to continue and conclude the saga with the grace of a funambulist on the superb Zwart vierkant: Slotstuk.

Zwart vierkant: Slotstuk (hereinafter Slotstuk) continues the story of Pedro, the fictional 20th-century Modernist painter and protagonist of Zwart vierkant and band member Ruben Wijlacker’s (vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, synthesizer) debut novel De protodood in zwarte haren (2019), on which the Zwart vierkant duology is based. Thematically, the album investigates, through Pedro’s escalating obsession, the tightrope act between abstraction and disintegration and how art and psychology dissolve into something violent and explosive. Slotstuk comes with tonal, textural and dramatic shifts, moving from the sweltering, horizon-rippling heat of Spain and creative revelations of Paris to more menacing, frantic and frenzied territories of Utrecht that mirror Pedro’s mental unraveling and spiraling into delirium through increasingly dangerous romantic and artistic actions.

While I lament the absence of castanets, which had such a stirring effect and immediately pulled me inside the music and world of Zwart vierkant, Slotstuk more than compensates for that with Sylwin Cornielje’s (also of Laster, Nusquama and Vuur & Zijde fame) nimble and mind-bending bass wizardry. And it is not like the rest of the band are slacking or phoning it in, as they handle their artistic duties and respective instruments with manic intensity, feverish dynamics and captivating musical quirks. In essence, they have sharpened their avant-garde assault to absolute lethality. 

To illustrate, the opening track “Daken als kiezen” is a flurry of dizzying twists and turns, which sees the band attacking out of the gate in dazzling unison as a swarm of angry, disoriented bees, striking with a hundred poisonous stings, before screeching to a momentary lull and transitioning into a dreamy, ominous creep, during which Wiljacker’s narration transforms into possessed, seething barks and bellows that emanate from the bowels of rabid madness. The last third of the song becomes a whirlwind of lunging aggression, pitter-patter percussion, pounding piledriver riffs and blast beat bursts, which dislocate and misplace the listener’s jaw. And just when you think you have regained your capacity to chew, in comes the pummeling and baleful “De ideologische seance,” with its waves of crackling and rippling synthesizers and dissonant melodies that wreathe and destabilize.

In turn, “Een uithangbord van wanhoop” is an epiphany, in how its first three minutes recall the oddball spirit and artistic cousinhood of Mr. Bungle’s masterpiece California and the percussive scatting of “Goodbye Sober Day,” and in how it spins and transitions into the berserk opening of “Opgehangen afgrond,” a constantly shapeshifting stunner that strikes out with froth-mouth ferocity that builds on the chaotic swirl of “Daken als Kiezen” by alternating violent amok runs and swinging high-speed interjections (Seth van de Loo’s drumming warrants special credit), wedging a jazz breather into the mix, and providing Pedro with a mirror that is cracked by Wiljacker’s deranged tenor. The caustic stabs, haunting throbs and threatening pulse of “Waarin de dood haar kust” introduce yet another thrilling facet of Grey Aura’s inventiveness and Pedro’s descent.

A set of succinct instrumentals are interspersed between songs and serve as palate-cleansers and welcome opportunities to stop one’s head from spinning amid the album’s no-holds-barred aural assault and pressure on the psyche. While the instrumentals are delightful and excellent on their own, and give an opportunity especially for Alberto Pérez Jurado’s tuba and trombone to shine, I yearned to hear more of these instruments and Ruben Schmidt’s cello and Tjebbe Broek’s Spanish guitar featured in the songs proper, even at the risk of overcrowding them.

Slotstuk culminates in the titular finale, with the story’s cast covered in blood and facing the all-consuming vastness of the void. While it marks the end of Pedro’s journey, Slotstuk represents an exhilarating leap forward for Grey Aura in their pursuit of thrilling avant-garde and towering artistic achievement and merits applause for its excellence and success in translating and transforming the narrative of Wiljacker’s novel into such intense, daringly adventurous metal. In essence and execution, Slotstuk traverses through the gateway to boundless artistic potential and expression which Pedro so obsessively and tragically sought, and further solidifies Grey Aura’s position as one of the leading standard-bearers of envelope-pushing and forward-looking metal. 

— Zyklonius

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Zwart vierkant: Slotstuk will be available March 28 on Avantgarde Music. For more information on Grey Aura, visit their Facebook page and official website.