In recent months, I have come to know Los Angeles, California’s Lord Time as one of the most challenging and idiosyncratic artists in American black metal. Sole member Andorkappen has crafted a distinctive, enthralling vision that’s thoroughly black, yet at times is only tethered to black metal by the thinnest of threads, incorporating elements of drone, ambient and noise to create dense musical tapestries that are nightmarish, surreal and at times abstract to the point where music transforms into pure, free-form sound exploration. Lord Time’s second album, Black Hole at the End of the Tunnel (henceforth referred to as BHATEOTT) was originally issued on cassette back in 2011, but now sees a vinyl re-release via Andorkappen’s own Universal Consciousness label.
Comprised of one thirty-six minute track, BHATEOTT is a twisted trip that demands to be listened to in one sitting. The movements within the track range from grating synth noise to hostile, clattering black metal and every ugly thing in-between, each one nastier and more out there than the next. The entirety of the recording has a weird submerged sound, like it was recorded on a four-track suspended in a bucket of raw sewage. The vocals often sound like a malfunctioning Speak & Spell, chanting god-knows-what from deep within the confines of the bleak and buzzing mix. Indeed, to say that BHATEOTT is an acquired taste is probably the understatement of the year, but those with wide open minds will no doubt enjoy having them slowly violated by it.
An album such as this doesn’t lend itself to picking out highlights; it’s more about taking in the totality of what should for all intents and purposes be a complete train wreck and marveling at how well it all fits together even though you know in the back of your mind that it shouldn’t. Lord Time’s music is so impossibly bent and wrong that it comes out the other side making total sense, a bizarro-world reflection of black metal at its most crude and corrosive. After extensive listening, I still can’t decide if these are the ravings of an insane man, or admonitions from one of the last sane men in a world gone fucking bonkers.
Ultimately, BHATEOTT, as well as the third and most recent Lord Time album Drink My Tears, are recordings that are beyond difficult to do justice to with mere words. Something as singular as Andorkappen’s uncompromisingly avant-garde approach needs to be experienced firsthand in order to be fully appreciated, and total concentration is needed in order to gain even a modicum of understanding, if any at all. In short, fans of the stranger side of black metal need to get on this ASAP.
THKD 
Great review. Will check this out.
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