I’ve always had an odd fascination with outliers- the Extreme, the
strange, the creative, those daring to take what others think is
discomforting and display it on their chest without caring about how
they’ll be judged. It’s really the Core reason I’m so invested in metal-
to sum it up as accurately as possible with one word, metal is freedom.
Freedom to express any emotion one so desires, Freedom to portray any
sort of theme, no matter how uncomfortable or offensive, and Freedom to
take sounds and vibrations many consider Abrasive or even unlistenable
and use them to express an artistic statement. The same could be said
for all music, I suppose, but metal takes the most advantage of all the
different facets of this Freedom to my ears in the many different forms
it takes- thrash metal’s uncompromising Anger, Brutal death metal’s
portrayal of sadistic and offensive themes, Power metal’s unashamed
escapism and fantasy- all of them represent some sort of Freedom an
individual possesses.



Then there’s black metal. To me, Black Metal is the genre that
exemplifies Freedom the most out of any metal genre. Though many
probably think that Black Metal has been a Cold, Negative, Evil genre
from its inception onward, I’d have to disagree with that. Even from the
beginning, when a bunch of weird Norwegian kids basically solidified
black metal into a real, definable genre, Black Metal was never really
negative- the extremity and satanic themes in the music were used as
catalysts to send the message that Norway needed to return to its Pagan
roots- Freedom of religion. It is a genre Born of youthful passion- all
of my favorite Black Metal bands, many of which are essential to the
genre- Burzum, Ulver, Obtained Enslavement, Spite Extreme Wing, to
namedrop a few- never sounded dark or Negative to me. Rather, their
music sounded full of vitality, Ideas, full of room for full, flowing,
elegant compositions to breathe- never before had I heard music that
broke traditional Shackles with such daring vigor.



Right about now is where DSBM comes in. In many ways, this kind of
music, despite taking tons of influence from Burzum and Ulver, is the
antithesis of my beliefs of what Black Metal should be about. Sure,
there’s certainly a lot of Anger in Black Metal, but it’s angry in the
sense that men with strong hearts and minds trying to break free from
the emotional burdens they possess are angry- they Cry in determination
and desperation as they try and rip the chains off their arms. DSBM is
that same prisoner; in this case, though, they gave up a long time ago.
Seemingly no effort is put into the compositions, the vocals meekly
croak along, the music is very stripped Down and simplistic, often using
a maximum of maybe Two riffs per song over Ten minutes, hoping that
with each repetition their thin, shallow riff will gain profundity. Most
of the time, this doesn’t work well at all- the music is boring and
because of that the sadness and despair in it comes off as laughable and
immature. This is the root of why much DSBM is the subject of much
ridicule from a lot of black metal fans.



I did say “most of the time” though. There are exceptions to this rule.
One of them- one of the first of their kind, and still among the best in
their field to this day- is I Shalt Become. Although I just stated that
DSBM is very restrictive and trapped, therefore going against black
metal’s supposed freedom, I also did say near the beginning of this
review that one of metal’s main assets is that it takes themes that many
consider uncomfortable and makes them the prime focus of their art. Wanderings
proves this to the fullest extent, and goes where few men tread- the
dark, insanity-ridden corners of the human mind- and it gets there by
USING the restrictive aesthetics of DSBM. The very notion of this album
is an anomaly, which makes sense, because it only gets weirder from
here.



Oddly enough, nothing on here ever seems as if it was created out of
pure impulse or spontaneity. Rather, every single iota of detail on this
album is carefully and meticulously composed. Even though contrasting
melodies pop up at random and infrequent intervals and the vocals are
amorphous and raw (more on those things a little later) none of it ever
surprises you- and that’s exactly the way it’s meant to be. This album
is perfectly content to remain reclusive within its own little world,
never venturing outside of DSBM’s unwritten “rules”. The difference
between them and something awful like Velvet Cacoon, however, is that I
Shalt Become remains confined as a choice rather than because of any
sort of limitation based on style or lack of creativity. Holliman would
rather explore the dark, tormented corners of his mind rather than cry
about the very existence of those corners. This isn’t so much an album
that takes you through someone’s emotional torture- rather, it merely
opens up a dark, strange path that the listener can choose to take.



Compositions are never given room to breathe on this album; the songs
here are almost being suffocated in their repetitiveness. Although the
songs aren’t extensively long- a good deal of them clock in at about
three minutes- by their end, they’re still exactly where they began.
Eerie riffs bleed into one another and because of their many
similarities, it’s done in a way that you barely notice, even when
you’re trying to. Pacing never changes, tension is never built or
released- it just remains throughout. It remains, unchanged as the song
slowly looks around for room to grow, looks for its real established
purpose, looks for something new with every riff but, of course, never
finds anything and the song ends as unceremoniously as it began; this,
in and of itself, is insanity. The songs repeat themselves and expect
something different to happen with each repetition- was it not once said
that insanity is “doing the same thing again and again expecting a new
result every time”? Now, one might think that this is a false claim of
musical genius, that the lack of, well, any sort of change in any of the
songs is simply lazy or poorly thought-out songwriting on Holliman’s
part. However, there are in fact a few sparse sections throughout Wanderings
that show just the slightest hint at a delicate, intricate melody, or
something resembling powerful, purposeful anger; perhaps even a slight
speeding up of the music. Then, it ends as soon as you realize it just
occurred. These parts add nothing to the album’s experience but the
realization that Holliman is easily capable of much more. These, however
rare, are the last desperate cries of the sane human mind, trying to
break free. Trying to break free from the voices, from the addiction to
mind-altering drugs, from the reality that you’ll always be a failure
whose life heads in no direction- and as much as Holliman tries to
change it- as much as he tries to change the song, he can’t. He’s
forever condemned to walk in circles, to create the same thing, over and
over again, not because he wants to, not because it’s all he can do,
but because he HAS to. It’s what his emotions drive him to create. This
music wasn’t created because it was pleasant; it was created out of
necessity to release these emotions, and thus, the (lack of) progression
in the songs is fitting, logical, and downright creepy.



Why, then, is the album called Wanderings? For an album with that
title, it sure seems to remain confined in its own bleak ambition and
hopeless, dreary haze. Well, you see, this album isn’t so much about
wandering the earth as it is wandering one’s psyche- these guitars mull
about and explore the corners of one’s mind. If the guitars define the
path this album travels through, the vocals are the voices that call out
from the path. This is a very guitar-centric album, the drums being
very minimal and doing little more than complimenting the music and
doing only what they must and nothing more, running parallel to the
music’s mood. The vocals are similar in a way- they appear very
infrequently, shriek, shout and wail at the heavens, and then fade away.
Anything goes with these screams- from tortured shrieks that DSBM
listeners will be well accustomed with to more subdued rasps to stale,
gravelly croaking, it’s all here. The vocal performance is downright
unsettling, but it’s not something that you notice right away because it
dips and darts around the edges of the music- it takes a few listens
before it slowly intrudes your brain, gets into your subconscious, and
THEN you start picking up on it.



It’ll take a few listens for everything to come into place- I don’t
think anyone’s going to be absolutely floored by something like this on
an initial listen because the actual building blocks of the music are
rather unremarkable on their own. It’s simply that Holliman makes use of
these pieces in genial, curious ways and it takes a while for the
coherent puzzle to fit together. But what will entice you to give this
band more attention than an obligatory cursory listen on youtube? Well,
although some people disagree with me, the lyrics and the presentation
of the music have just as much of a factor on the album’s quality as any
element of the music does, and Wanderings is wrapped up in a package
that leaves you with more questions than answers. The information in the
booklet is extremely minimal, and the lyrics are among the best lyrics
that have ever been written in metal, hands down. They’re brief,
abstract passages that seem to cover a variety of topics, although most
of them, when placed within the context of their music and their
delivery, seem to reflect the contemplation of the worst, most uneasy
aspects of the self, heavily couched in metaphor. They’re the gate to
the hopeless, pitch black chasm that this album is. Their minimalism
contributes to their versatility- you can read them on their own and
read them along with the music- both provide equally enjoyable
experiences and raise their own individual questions.



The first time you hear this album, don’t expect anything special. Quite
frankly there is nothing inherently “special” on this album. While this
is probably just me forming my own baseless conclusion, I almost see
this as an intentional antithesis of black metal’s vast pantheon of
powerful, triumphant, gripping music- yes, this owes great nods to
Burzum, but whereas Burzum is hypnotic, dreamlike and surprisingly
melodic, I Shalt Become prefers to take up the negative space and simply
dwells in its own self-loathing, collapsed under the weight of the
freedoms inherent to black metal. This is nothing more than a camera’s
view into places in our mind that we previously ignored- the shrieks,
the screams, the despair that we all posses somewhere in there but
prefer to disregard because we can’t quite come to terms with it- we
can’t quite come to terms that something this horrid exists within
something like a regular human being. In the ultimate display of
insanity, I Shalt Become not only refuses to reject this, but puts it on
display, perhaps even glorifies it, perceiving it as the only way to
truly come to terms with one’s self.



Whether or not you will embrace this, however, is entirely up to you.
Whether or not you choose to accept the fact that something as deranged,
disheartening and scarily powerful lies within all of us is completely
at your discretion- you could just finish reading this review and move
on with your life, as I Shalt Become’s masterpiece of a debut become
nothing more than a buried memory. You could even listen to this album
tens of times and not have “the gears turn” as I said, because your
state of mind just isn’t right for this album, whether you’re conscious
of that or not. But one day, when nothing fits together and you’re
feeling detached from yourself, when there’s a hollow emptiness that no
drug could ever remedy, when you’re feeling somewhat at odds with your
sanity, only then will this album make sense. Only then will you
understand the nature of this album and how deep it travels and why it
goes where it goes and does what it does. Only then will you recognize
this for the masterful work of art it truly is.



...and the spirit drifts away...