Venezuelan black metal force Selbst will release its new album (and third overall), Despondency Chord Progressions, on April 19 via the always excellent Debemur Morti Productions. And since neither we nor you can wait that long to get a taste of the project’s Enslaved- and Mgła-inspired progressive madness, we’re stoked to premiere the first track and video in the form of “Chant of Self Confrontation.” But first, a word from the single-lettered entity behind it.
“Musically, ‘Chant of Self Confrontation’ was one of the songs that flowed the fastest during the composition process and was the first one I worked on for this record, which somehow set the course for the rest of the songs,” explains Selbst’s enignatic sole musician/composer/vocalist — and, in this case, sole character — N. “Compositionally, both guitars (lead and rhythm) don’t seem to go together or in unison throughout the whole song, but rather one passes through the other, presenting some slightly complex figures that could work perfectly on their own, but in this case, they are intertwined.
“Lyrically, the song is based on the internal struggles that an individual must endure, on how guilt, fear, or feeling tormented by a past event can pursue you,” continues N. “And that’s why I instructed (video director) Fabio to develop this struggle and personify it in a figurative way if you will. Within the concept of the video there are themes of self-reflection and the idea of how thoughts can take a form of their own, an entity itself that exists in its own way; how this entity being a mirror image of the main character hunts and how ultimately she can’t escape from herself.”
Despondency Chord Progressions is released April 19 but is available now for pre-order via Debemur Morti Productions in the U.S. here and in the E.U. here as well as Bandcamp here.
