Sutekh Hexen – Sutekh Hexen (CD Album – Cyclic Law)
Genre/Influences: Dark-ambient, death-industrial.
Background/Info: Self-titled albums often are the first ones released by a band, but this American project based in Oakland (USA) has already released multiple productions since 2011.
Content: The album has been accomplished with the help from several guests. Demian Johnston, Nathaniel Ritter, Jim Haynes, Jim Kaiser (RIP), Mackenzie Chami, Venien, Ryan Jobes, James Martinez, and Patricia Cram contributed to the work. The album takes off with two harsh and aggressive tracks mixing drones with death-industrial exponents. Tortured guitar effects and harsh screams are resonating. But the work also reveals ‘softer’ cuts. The sphere remains hostile and dark, the vocals became somewhat whispering while the guitar play remains an important part of the work. The work progressively moves back to harder sonic fields resulting into a truly kafarnaum.
+ + + : Sutekh Hexen has created a proper sound characterized by overwhelming sound blasts and –treatments. The noisy guitar parts are essential, like injecting a truly sonic cataclysm, which together with boiling noises and the heavy, possessed screams lead the listener into angst. I prefer the somewhat ghost-like whispers and the more ‘traditional’ dark-ambient passages.
– – – : “Sutekh Hexen” is not exactly the most accessible format in the dark music genre. It’s an extreme artistic exposure, which personally doesn’t convince me.
Conclusion: Sutekh Hexen deals with a kind of perverted- and gore sound format; a genre that will appeal for ‘hardcore’ fans in the genre. You gone like it or not!
Best songs: “Torrential”, “SubStratus”.
Rate: (6).
Artist: www.sutekhhexen.org / www.facebook.com/sutekhhexenofficial
Label: www.cycliclaw.com / www.facebook.com/cycliclaw Read the news on ‘Sutekh Hexen’.
About Sutekh Hexen
Sutekh Hexen is a noise and death-industrial project formed in San Francisco by guitarist Kevin Gan Yuen together with fellow guitarist Scott Miller. Early releases included the 2011 debut album “Luciform”, “Larvae” via Analog Worship in 2012, the mini-album “Behind The Throne” via Magic Bullet in 2012, the rarities compilation “Empyraisch” via Vendetta in 2012, and “Breed In Me The Darkness” via Aurora Borealis in 2012, featuring remixes by Andrew Liles. After Miller’s departure, Gan Yuen continued the project with Lee Camfield, Andy Way, Ryan Jenckes and Joshua Churchill, releasing the live album “Salem” via Saint Roch in 2017 and a double-cassette of “Salem” remixes the same year. This self-titled album, reviewed here and issued on Cyclic Law, is described as the first full album of the project’s second phase. Sutekh Hexen later returned with the joint album “P:R:I:S:M” alongside Funerary Call in 2023, and the limited CD edition of “Primeval” in 2025.
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