{"id":301495,"date":"2025-11-19T16:36:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T16:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/301495\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T16:36:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T16:36:12","slug":"tzevaot-the-hermetic-way-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/301495\/","title":{"rendered":"Tzevaot – The Hermetic Way Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Oh, to have half the confidence of the average solo artist dabbling in the esoteric. Their avant-garde opuses can\u2019t all be the status-quo-subverting masterworks of music and philosophy they claim to be. For some reason, I, Voidhanger keeps signing them, and for equally opaque reasons, we keep choosing to review their albums. Tzevaot is the experimental black metal project of an individual known only as The Orator, who in The Hermetic Way explores occult ideas purported to unveil \u201cactual hidden mechanisms of reality,\u201d with heavy inspiration from the magical tradition made popular by who else but Aleister Crowley. And while everything from the flowery promo blurb to the time-stamped lyrics and the solemn spoken-word poetry tries to convince you of its significance. The Hermetic Way completely fails to impart much more than consternation.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s difficult to know where to even begin with The Hermetic Way, and its brand of wisdom. At every turn, things somehow go wrong. The core sound is something akin to Esoctrilihum\u2014barking screams, twisty guitars, and a propensity for echo on everything\u2014only with a mix you\u2019d barely forgive a bedroom project for, and a compositional style that makes said Esoctrilihum sound catchy. Tzevaot jumbles synths, piano, and guitars that seem to hit upon a genuine groove of Emperor-esque theatrics or Absu-level style completely by accident; the fact that the best melodies are never reprised only supports this theory. The drumming\u2014which may well be a machine for all I can discern\u2014is flat and dull, buried by the wall of heavy reverb between the sharp stab of the vocals and the other instruments. This intensifies the feeling of aggravated confusion that defines the listening experience, as one struggles to keep up with the nonsensical rhythmic trades, sudden inclusion of solo synth or piano, and yet more spoken-word. This is not the nuanced placelessness of an intelligent, complex extreme metal, where discordance and strange rhythms develop impossibly but seamlessly into new forms; this is a mess.<\/p>\n

The Hermetic Way by TZEVAOT<\/a><\/p>\n

As with many similar works of art, all of The Hermetic Way\u2019s failures arise from the hubris of their creator. The indulgence of every idea, at the expense of their development, integration, and refinement, causes the record to swing pendulously between mind-numbing boredom and toe-curling cringe. Without fail, songs go in the most annoying possible direction, dropping tension like a hot potato and throwing out a rare good musical passage in favour of the most jarring refrains (\u201cSolve et Coagula,\u201d \u201cPyres of Meaning Light the New Aeon\u2019s Way\u201d), or another arrangement of noise to a jaunty tempo that makes a mockery of the previous composition (\u201cZosimos the Alchemist\u201d). Elements are often so poorly integrated, that sections clearly designed for drama\u2014stripped-back keys or solemn recitations\u2014fail to land; the sample of famed occult author Lon Milo DuQuette is barely audible past the fickle interchanges of organs, riffs, and drums. The Oracle persistently delivers vocals in a monotonous, rapid-fire bark that gets grating fast, particularly when combined with Tzevaot\u2019s fondness for stacking tempos and synth accompaniments like dominos one after another. But I would listen to hours of all the above barks rather than sit just once more through horror show \u201cThe Hero of Megiddo,\u201d a skin-crawling ditty whose redemptive brevity is made moot by its being the only thing on the record with a memorable tune, causing the perverse singing and jangling chords to turn around in your brain like an inescapable merri-go-round.<\/p>\n

\"\"Most painful of all is that The Hermetic Way could have been so much better. Tzevaot might try to borrow the label of \u201cjazz\u201d to elevate whatever\u2019s going on with piano and cymbals at various points. While that\u2019s not really justified, it\u2019s nonetheless striking that every single isolated passage of good music on The Hermetic Way involves piano (\u201cThe Emerald Tablet of Thoth,\u201d \u201cAir Fire Water Earth,\u201d \u201cMetempsychosis\u201d). These fleeting moments, which comprise approximately five percent of the runtime combine key slides and arpeggios in a stylish, interesting way that\u2019s very cool, and variously reminiscent of Wreche, Vengeur, and once again Emperor. In an hour of music that is otherwise so exhausting, this is obviously not enough. By the time the best parts of the album arrive in closer \u201cMetempsychosis,\u201d you\u2019re likely too checked out to care, if you\u2019re even still listening.<\/p>\n

The Hermetic Way\u2019s title is apt. Not only as it divulges supposed profound truths through the visionary teachings of the self-imposed hermit, who has reached enlightenment through years of solitary contemplation. But also because that\u2019s quite a good analogy for the solo metal musician of the esoteric bent. Maybe Tzevaot harbors real genius, and I\u2019m simply too blind and deaf to see or hear it in their work. More likely it\u2019s another case of talent foiled by delusion.<\/p>\n

Rating: Bad
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 265 kb\/s mp3
Label: I, Voidhanger
Websites: Bandcamp<\/a> | Facebook<\/a>
Releases Worldwide: November 14th, 2025<\/p>\n

\n\tGive in to Your Anger:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oh, to have half the confidence of the average solo artist dabbling in the esoteric. Their avant-garde opuses…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[105048,2967,156933,9676,28619,119857,88,156934,156935,86009,153107,216,151557,899,900,156936,156937],"class_list":["post-301495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-1-5","tag-2967","tag-avant-garde-metal","tag-black-metal","tag-emperor","tag-english-metal","tag-entertainment","tag-esoctrilihum","tag-esoteric-black-metal","tag-experimental-metal","tag-i-voidhanger-records","tag-music","tag-nov25","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-the-hermetic-way","tag-tzevaot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}