With seven tracks, being them Unto the Earth, Serpentium, Sol Katharsis, Tree of Life, Discipuli H.Trismegistus, The Twelve Keys and Absolutio, the atmosphere created by these songs certainly transpose the listener to a desolate, gray and funereal endless afternoon of medieval Europe, where you can almost feel yourself to be an apprenticeship on the arts of the occult, wearing a long tunic, and following your master through a tunnel, where you shall continue your lessons on chrysopoeia, the correct mixture of elements to achieve a fully purified elixir to discover the secrets of everlasting life and the unbound ethereal stream of dualistic traditions that could lead to a complete knowledge of existence.
An exceedingly marvelous work, Temple of Gnosis’ music is fully exacerbated and impregnated with the occult arts, all immersed in an inspired chain of sagacious sonorous contrivance, that creates an ambient that perfectly fits the atmosphere aligned with the theme’s proposition, serving to a purpose that literally recognizes all the elements that converges completely to a line of rationalization that builds in a precise matter of components the marvelous characterization of the music.
Despite being somewhat classified as “metal”, this really does not apply to Temple of Gnosis, maybe except for the parts that resembles a more doom metal oriented style of music, which is very little. With a style way more peculiar and individualistic than what appears at a first glance, Temple of Gnosis’ music is the sonorous transliteration of a profound ethereal layout of underground forbidden knowledge, surrounded by an abyssal strain of alarming obscurity, devoted to decipher secrets deemed too high for ordinary men. Nevertheless, in what concerns the basic principles that shapes the pace of the music, Temple of Gnosis’ fundamental milestones are centered in the use of funereal orchestral symphonies and esoteric dark ambient tones, which makes all descriptions of Temple of Gnosis as metal as rather simplistic and untrue. As the artist himself wrote on his Facebook page:
“The album is not just another “metal” album to bang your head on. Although the concept uses guitars and drums, harsh and deep vocals, which can classify the material into occult death/ doom, the emphasis is on the symphony and overall ambient of the release, focusing on the storyline and alchemical concept, rather than trying to sound “doom metal” or having catchy riffs. The story is presented in an atmospheric, mysterious and deeply symbolic way, in order to awake the old & forgotten, buried parts of the Self. Cleansing and purification through catharsis are the main tools through which this material has been delivered, and should accordingly be received.”
Aiming to reconcile the strain of a source of profound forgotten knowledge, aligning the dualistic elements that prophesizes the convergence of an harmonic principle of categorizations that pulses through the dense paradox of vital antagonisms, the music of Temple of Gnosis is impregnated with fundamental and scientific proposals, that transliterate into the sound the rewarding creations of a knowledge that has all the prospects to be a milestone of enlightenment, in what concerns a time that dwelled between the horizon of the light and the realm of the darkness, and Temple of Gnosis’ music is in between both, aiming to reconcile and infuse altogether the alignments that correlates paradoxical principles in a sphere of ancient knowledge, disregarded by modern society.
DE SECRETIS NATVRAE ALCHYMICA is a very intriguing and interesting work. With an original concept that really captures the essence of its main theme, Temple of Gnosis is an ambitious musical project, that makes useful all the basic elements of several different styles and genres of music, creating something marvelously unique. With an astounding degree of excellence and dynamism, this is the perfect example of a work wonderfully dilapidated, incredibly premeditated, successfully researched and brilliantly executed, delivering in the boundaries of its consistency the most high and glorious standards of creativity that any artist could possibly aspire.
Wagner