Obsession is the force that lies at the center of Zwart Vierkant: Slotstuk. The album’s protagonist Pedro, a modernist painter, is driven into psychological decay and a life of dangerous exploits (crime, affairs, etc.) to feed his obsession to create the perfect piece of abstract art. In the end, he reaches the ultimate culmination of his endeavors, the perfect point of abstraction in the physical realm – for a gruesome price.
Dutch avant-metal upstarts Grey Aura drew upon their vocalist/guitarist/synthesist Ruben Wijlacker’s novel De protodood in zwarte haren (which I will amateurishly translate as The Black-Haired Pre-Death for everyone’s convenience; may the author have mercy on my language skills) to weave a chilling tale of obsession, loss of reality, and the unwavering chase for artistic perfection. On Zwart Vierkant: Slotstuk, Grey Aura drape this heavy subject matter in radiant shades of avant-garde black metal, drawing from jazz, classical, prog, and other experimental sectors of the music spectrum to enhance their vicious yet refined onslaught on our senses.
All this hides behind a colorful yet fiercely abstract cover art that might as well represent the self-reflection Pedro reaches towards the end of his quest for his Gesamtkunstwerk. It’s a garbled mess of colours and facial features in a roughly humanoid form, reflecting the artist through the warped kaleidoscope of his withered psyche: beautiful, radiant, broken. Instead of putting the focus on the ends our protagonist sought to reach, this artwork zeroes in on the immense devastation he wrought upon himself to achieve his goals.
Ever loyal to its subject matter and the genre Grey Aura operate in, Zwart Vierkant: Slotstuk presents itself in a guise that’s initially impenetrable, difficult to digest, yet desperately enticing for those who admire this kind of aesthetic. Black metal clashes with brass instruments, there’s hints of classical music and Spanish guitar stylings, and it’s all permeated with this perverse sense of purposely, delightfully overstepping one’s own psychological borders and those of others – on purpose, naturally, to draw inspiration from the rifts created. This is a band doggedly dedicated to its purpose, almost a musical parallel to the story they set to music. Almost.
Pedro’s self-destruction (a sort of artistic self-vivisection) is mirrored in the frantic yet methodical nature of these seven boundary-annihilating tracks. Gentle, jazzy sections are met with the brute force of gruelling black metal assaults, only to miraculously remain unscathed. The different elements of Grey Aura’s vision clash, touch, mingle freely, and blur into each other; yet they remain singular, distinct, as if kept intact by sheer force of will. Again, this alludes to the journey of our protagonist, who tries so hard to fabricate a harmonious, all-encompassing piece of abstraction from disparate (and desperate) means, only to be met with resistance and futility at every turn.
This push-and-pull between different styles, themes, and identities is what makes Zwart Vierkant: Slotstuk so immensely addicting. I can’t believe how seamlessly self-referential the music and its literary underpinnings are; Grey Aura must have put inhuman amounts of care and effort into every minute detail. Every riff, every drum fill, every line of lyrics Wijlacker spits at the listener: it all serves a purpose – the same, singular, obsessively rendered purpose.
In the end, there’s only the void. Pedro has achieved his dream by creating a ‘representation of the death of the physical realm’, and yet there’s nothing triumphant about this moment. There is no satisfaction to be gleaned from this towering monument to his sacrifice, just more desperation, isolation, and loss. A grievous look at the lengths an artist might go to in order to see their vision fulfilled.
Zwart Vierkant: Slotstuk is a harrowing experience, musically and contextually. But it’s not without its moments of grace and levity to remind us that its story doesn’t necessarily have to be a representation of reality. It’s a cautionary tale, more than anything, and the way it mingles literature, fine art, and music is a beautiful sight indeed. Grey Aura’s unpredictable yet precise creativity has brought forth an experience that’s scantly rivalled in the world of modern avant-metal, and I dare you to miss out on it at your own peril.
