Every single one of us has a select list of albums that we’re looking forward to at any given point. For me, there are some real constants thanks to the likes of Eremit, Itnuveth, Ende, The Re-Stoned, and loads of others that I’m always ready for new material from. Yet, some come around more often than others. It’s been a long five years since I first came upon Australia’s Arkheth in all of its truly wondrous weirdness that felt never-ending given how consumed I was in the excellence that is “12 Winter Moons Comes the Witches Brew” that I still lose myself in, and it’s to the point that holding my obvious bias back is a real struggle given that the waiting has finally come to an end! In a fashion that’s just as spectacular and outlandish as the work that came before it, the long-awaited fourth creation from Arkheth is something that is a true sight to behold that absolutely demands the moniker of unique.

Experimentalism is something that many can find just as interesting as it can be terrifying given that it throws all conventional rules out the window, and anything is possible so long as the mind can fathom it. There are always a few choice names out there that are constantly pushing those boundaries to extremes that cannot be denied, questioned, or quantified by any sort of rational thought, and it’s in that ever-shifting, wild soundscape that Arkheth has made a true bastion for the likes of black metal. As if the previous endeavor into the mind of this one-man act wasn’t enough, it’s with the fourth effort of “Clarity Came with a Cool Summer’s Breeze” that we witness Arkheth go even further into the trenches of experimental and psychedelia where the lines between black metal and progressive trips are really starting to blur. There isn’t a single track in any of this album that’s quite like anything else I’ve heard in the entirety of the underground in my nearly nine years of doing these reviews and fervent digging through albums upon albums with very few even finding their way into the properly strange fringes of the experimental wilds, yet it’s every given second of these six tracks that find the record steeped in the strangest of all. From the cover art that’s in love with the most psychedelic reaches of the cosmos to the one of a kind mixed of black metal, classic progressiveness in all the realms of psychedelia, and all but the perfect blend of such majesty that can never be deemed as anything less than mind-bending is the only reality that for “Clarity Came with a Cool Summer’s Breeze” and all the craziness that ensues should you merely take the trip and let Arkheth take you.

A band like this that manages to go from one album to the next without ever treading over the same exact space is to come upon a name that is always seeking something greater than itself, to satiate a desire that can never be truly pinned down, and to achieve a goal not meant for mere mortals. Arkheth is a real beast of unpredictable nature with the very years a coin flip as to what we’re to get from the band, and it’s no matter the direction that name should take be it deeper into experimenting and psychedelia or back into black metal, it’s a path that absolutely must be the adventure. Given the ultimate trip of “Clarity Came with a Cool Summer’s Breeze”, why am I to deny such an obvious truth?

“Clarity Came with a Cool Summer’s Breeze” releases on September 30th via I, Voidhanger Records!

LISTEN to an advanced track from “Clarity Came with a Cool Summer’s Breeze” on Bandcamp here.

LIKE Arkheth on Facebook here.