OFFICIUM TRISTE – Hortus Venenum

RELEASE YEAR: 2024
BAND URL: https://officiumtriste.com/

Even though I knew what the Dutch atmospheric doom death metal sextet was capable of by the excellent Mors Viri²⁰¹³ and The Death Of Gaia²⁰¹⁹, I never expected their 7th album in 30 years, Hortus Venenum²⁰²⁴, released on September 6th via Transcending Obscurity Records, to be this utterly deep and heartshakigly gorgeous as it is, so dangerously close to perfection, with the chief flaw of the predecessor, lack of variety handled so seemingly effortlessly, since it is evident from the first note 100% heart and might was poured out into this near masterpiece of epic proportions for our souls’ pleasure, although, in truth, there’s nothing really new here, some Peaceville Three (Anathema, My Dying Bride, Paradise Lost), some melodic death a’la Be’lakor or Katatonia, but, too, some, at least structural and lightly stylistic Pink Floyd or, perhaps, those “almost got back to greatness but not quite” stalwarts, Opeth. However, the way everything was put together, the power of heartrending MELODIES, the atmospherics that invite sudden pace changes, not too much, just for emphasis – all those things make for an absolutely mind-blowing release which, if it doesn’t move you, you are cordially invited to check for the stone where your heart ought to beat, for possibly their magnum opus.

The beginning of Officium Triste (OT), a likely euphemism for a funeral, is quite pedestrian for an epic atmospheric doom death act, with a practical death metal non-entity, Reincreamated, of no discernible point of ingress but a clear egress into Officium Triste and Demo ’94¹⁹⁹⁴ by Pim Blankenstein (vocals), Gerard De Jong (guitars), Martin Kwakernaak (drums-2008), Johan Kwakernaak-Vastenhout  (guitars-2007) and Maarten Van Der Giessen (guitars-1996), leading to the debut Ne Vivam¹⁹⁹⁷ (via Teutonic Existence Records) to a great acclaim, yet with the disapointing The Pathway²⁰⁰¹ (via Displeased Records), following and the subsequent triumphal Reason²⁰⁰⁴ and Giving Yourself Away²⁰⁰⁷ (both on Displeased), subsequent which Johan Kwakernaak-Vastenhoutand left to eventually form a Christian symphonic band At The Cross (2021). Their 5th full length, the aforementioned, excellent “Mors Viri” (on Hammerheart Records), was the album of my introduction to the band, its final track, “Like Atlas”, inspiring a personal deep introspection of my spiritual, emotional and psychological condition, which had led to my online encounter with Officium Triste’s founder, Martin Kwakernaak, who helped me get out of a personal crisis. If you ever doubt music can change lives – I am a living proof that not only it but not rarely its creators can and will. “Mors Viri” was so great and so well-balanced, too boot, I doubted they would be able to beat, let alone match it, which proved true with the aforementioned great “The Death Of Gaia”, which, nevertheless, was, comparatively, a bit of a one trick pony with barely traceable death in the doom, though it concerned a very urgent theme, a tale of the Earth’s (titular Gaia, ancient representation’s of Planet Earth, a goddess and a mother to mankind, according to ancient mythology) last days, so I’m overjoyed that OT rectified this oversight of variety on “Hortus Venenum”, well, to a great extent, anyway.

To be sure, the doom reigns supreme, enforced by the fabulous production of Erwin Hermsen (the classic, Malevolent Creation, Master and Pestilence remasters), be it on the opening “Behind Closed Doors” wonderfully recalling the resignation and despair of “Like Atlas”, “Anna’s Woe” or “Walk In Shadows” where the guitar duo of founder De Jong and William Van Dijk (2014-guitars) evokes comparisons to the genre usual suspects, Calvin Robertshaw and Andrew Craighan of My Dying Bride (“Walk In Shadows” and “Forcefield”, both apparently heavily influenced by “The Light At The End Of The World”) as well as Paradise Lost’s Aaron Aedy and Gregor Macintosh (especially “My Poison Garden”), however, they both get sometimes equaled, sometimes overshadowed by founder’s Martin Kwakernaak’s marvelous keyboards (since 2001), quite a love feast for the senses especially in “Anna’s Woe” and “Angels With Broken Wings” but there are also some surprises, such as Be’lakoric melodeath speedup (Forcefield), Mar De Grises but also Queensrÿche’s “Promised Land” stylings (“Walk In Shadows”, didn’t Queensrÿche have an opener with similar title on Rage For Order¹⁹⁸⁶?) as well as some light references to the 90s Pink Floyd (Anna’s Woe, Angels With Broken Wings), and, 3 of 6 tracks have death metal in them (My Poison Garden, Forcefield, Angels With Broken Wings), definitely for good measure (although I could use more of death metal still plus “My Poison Garden” feels prematurely ended) and then, finally, the interplay between doom rock, death metal and doom metal to circle back to doom rock (especially in the closer) is mastery in emotive songwriting, structure, pace and graduation of atmospherics, courtesy of the versatile section of Niels Jordaan (2009-drums) and Theo Plaisier (2016-bass), as well as Blankenstein’s excellent non-threatening moribound growls and melodeclamations almost like a separate instrument, “Angels With Broken Wings” probably their single greatest composition and “Hortus Venenum” their greatest album.

The late showman Jerry Springer used to end his programs, where he dealt with disfunctional relationships, with the words “take care of yourself and each other” and in these times that try man’s souls, to borrow from Thomas Paine’s “Age Of Reason”, we increasingly fail to do either one scorning what once seemed an effortless balancing act. Where “The Death Of Gaia” dealt with the inevitable and irreversible decline of the planet Earth due to her terminal cancer also known as man, “Hortus Venenum” (Latin for “Poison Garden”) takes on that cancer and how, I, the virus, am itself infected with a virus, narcissism, that is, the belief that I am god not man and that, therefore I should be worshipped and served, but, of course, narcissism goes beyond that. The narcissist doesn’t merely think he or she is a god and therefore demands worship, but that they are the only thing that is, all others mere reflections or means to an end. It is also, the very nature of the Devil, that is, mankind’s and God’s greatest Adversary (Satan’s) and Slanderer (Diabolos), the god of this present world, who thinks he’s God (yes, capital “G”) and that he should be worshipped as such, mankind increasingly following his lead and character, which is best described in 3 words: me, myself and I. It is actually a perfect reversal of the sacrificial Son Of God, my Lord Jesus Christ, who spent His entire life sacrificing His time, health, energy and God-given power to help and serve everyone around him to the point of even dying a gruesome death on a cross to save those who will accept His sacrifice and leading and, those who should daily both oppose the Devil and expose his followers and sycophants in all high places. While there are more and more and ever louder voices which call narcissism for what it is – demonic influence in man and equate narcissistic personality disorder with demonic possession (either bodily or of the mind), sadly, there are also many who not only dismiss them as “mentally ill” and able to be “cured” but the problem as  having no spiritual connotations. At least one thing is true of both Jesus Christ and the Devil: they are faithful and protective of their disciples, except the Devil will drop his like a used can of Coke once he drinks them to the last drop, of that I am personally experientially quite positive of.

Officium Triste, some of the former and current members confessed Christians, leaves no room for doubt in the opener “Behind The Door”. The victims of the narcissist “behind the door, lie in filth, their mind broken into insanity, locked inside, their willpower all gone” while “being alive has become” their enemy as “they’ve lost this fight, broken on the floor” where “within the cage there is no light” but they have “neither the strength or key to open the door”, Blankenstein’s description so instantly vividly accurate to those who have lived behind closed doors for what seems like ages, a true hell on Earth with a clear beginning but no discernible end, many eventually choosing a permanent solution to what is, believe or not, still a temporary problem, to use a popular U.S. military euphemism. Interestingly, according to Officium Triste, godlessness is not the root of man’s insanity (for they do recognize gods many and lords many) but false religion and that always starts in the mind, where the main (some say the only) battle rages on, the battle excellently depicted in the almost-title track (MY Poison Garden) as well as in “Walk In Shadows”. In the latter, Pim melodeclamates “is it an angel telling me everything will be alright, the dark will disappear and the light will shine bright?” or “is it a demon telling me I am going to die, that I’m better off dead and I should stop living this lie?” or “to give up this fight” with “good and evil on my shoulders” which he calls “the balancing scales of life” as he wonders whether he will “succeed or fail?” and “what will I decide?”, and desperately begs “can someone stop these whispers in the back of my darkened mind?”, all of which almost convinces me that the poison garden on the cover and the main subject of the album is none other but the garden of Eden, which God called “garden of delight” while, at the same time, placing a tree of the knowledge of good and evil as He also forbade His creation to eat therefrom. It’s like, when in Adam and Eve we had chosen to disobey, we were cursed with eating from it…for life, which also proved beyond reasonable doubt that God doesn’t control the Earth – we do! And the mistaken and widely believed in Christianity unbiblical dogma that we sin and yet somehow God is in control is the source of insanity that sends a lonely innocent widow to a burning stake for allegedly being “Satan’s whore” in “Anna’s Woe”, so, no wonder some define Christianity as an amalgamate of Christ + insanity.

Yet therein lies the other issue with narcissism, for, like the Chief Narcissist, man has the incessant urge to protect themselves from their surroundings, whether the threat or danger is real or imaginary, something brilliantly and succinctly described in “Forcefield” where “disappointed by people surrounding me” and because of “the lessons in life I have learned, I have to protect myself from falling into ruin” therefore “I don’t give in, I won’t get burnt” whereby I become invulnerable and impervious to damage at the cost of my empathy for the fellow man – exactly where the Chief Narcissist would want me to end up, as that’s a road to narcissism. Better to, as Buddhist monk Pema Chodron says in her books, live with a perennially openly bleeding heart than to shut it down and put Jericho walls around it, walls which will fall, anyway, when the true light, true love, true empathy and true compassion shine into it. And that compassion, that empathy, that love and that light is poured out in the final track, “Angels With Broken Wings”, an epic heartbreaking anthem which was an instant favorite and which deserves a separate paragraph.

Even from the starting violin and piano introduction I already knew this track was going to be exceptional as Blankenstein begins a morose tale on what we, so called adults, are doing to the world’s children, the titular angels with broken wings. No specific war or conflict is mentioned but we’d rightly point to the bestial invasion of Ukraine by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin (now aided by the current treasonous White House and Capitol occupants) or the genocidal treatment of Palestinians by the corrupt Benjamin Nanyahu Israeli regime (for years aided by every sitting U.S. President), which only serves to prolong the  over 77 year conflict and which some religious speaker of my aquintance recently called “no big deal compared to what The U.S. did to Vietnam and Iraq” in terms of indigenous folk killed, or even the now no longer so secret, at the time covert, CIA black operations which resulted in untold suffering of innocent children from nameless countries, but to me personally and most currently, it’s about the most recent deathtoll resulting from the White House sharing of Ukrainian positions with Putin, an eggregious evil worthy of permanently renaming the presidential residence the Dark House or the House Of Sith. Regardless of who is who and which is which, any war veteran will tell you that there are never any gains, only losses in war “times of sorrow, misery and despair” while “children cry, uncertain what the future brings, their innocence lost, their childhood robbed, they are scared” because “their playgrounds are gone, bombshells their new toys, and in the background the sirens howl, their schools in ruins, their homes destroyed, and, in the distance all these bombs fall, victims of war scarred forevermore” and, We, the People, can no longer say we aren’t complicit just because we don’t vote or do this or that way, because it is laughably and heartbreakingly no longer enough, although, in truth, we have more questions than answers, only problems and no solutions. But, at least Officium Triste, I, and hopefully you, my fine feathered fellow metalhead, rise up in our hearts against all that hell on Earth, some of us mindful of the words of future Judge of all, Jesus Christ:

Truly I say to you, unless you change and become as little children, you will absolutely not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Therefore, whoever will humble himself as this little child, that one is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. And whoever receives a little child like this one in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believes in me to fall away, it would be better for him to have a huge millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the lake – Matthew 18:3-6, REV, emphasis mine