Prolific French weirdo Asthâghul returns with his 10th studio album under the Esoctrilihum moniker since 2017. That’s certainly a lot of albums, with recent years seeing two or more releases a year. This year, our own Metalligatorrr already reviewed Funeral (which was 80 mins of Asthâghul experimenting with a nyckelharpa and clean chants in his songs). I, however, was enlisted to review what is undoubtedly Esoctrilihum’s most ambitious work yet—a two hour and ten minute triple LP. Triple albums are notoriously hard to pull off well, so is this one worth your time?
First and foremost, this album sounds very nice. Gabriele Gramaglia (Cosmic Putrefaction, Vertebra Atlantis, etc…) handled the production here, giving it a more organic sound than previous Esoctrilihum releases. There’s a heavy focus on synths here, but the orchestral nature of them fits well with the themes of (what I presume to be) three divine beasts competing for control of the universe. It comes off as very grandiose, with Asthâghul himself sounding like a demonic conductor of this apocalyptical orchestra. However, there certainly are problems throughout this. The most notable problem is the lack of variation in songs.
Many of the tracks here present identical sounding passages, and none of them go below five minutes in length, so it can be hard to ascertain which song is which. Each song is very structurally similar to one another, with the trademark “stop-start” playing used on every prior Esoctrilihum release showing up in full force. This is especially prevalent on the two closing tracks, which are both insultingly long, at 21 minutes each, which brings me to my next point and biggest critique: this album is way too damn long. There’s a reason triple albums rarely land well, and that reason is length. As good as a band might be, it’s a hard argument to convince me why I should listen to 130 minutes (or more in some cases) of—in this case—incredibly repetitive songwriting.
Overall, this album leaves me exhausted. It, like most Esoctrilihum, is fine in small doses, but I cannot see myself listening to this more than once in a blue moon, if that. Perhaps on the next release which most likely will see the light of day later in the year, Asthâghul will either edit or make more memorable songs. But Astraal Constellations of the Majickal Zodiac? I doubt anyone but the most diehard of Esoctrilihum fans will truly love this.
