Pneuma Hagion: "Trinity I" Cassette
Pneuma Hagion: "Trinity I" Cassette
Nuclear War Now Productions, ANTI-GOTH 298
Pro duplicated chrome cassette.
“Holy Spirit,” as it is defined in the Christian New Testament and thus more commonly understood in contemporary society, is a term derived from the combination of the Greek words “hagion” and "pneuma,” respectively. However, canonical Christian doctrine is not the only belief system to have adopted these foreign words in an effort to explain our perceived existence. In a Gnostic context, the same words refer to the “Divine Spark” of human consciousness that is imprisoned, perhaps hopelessly, in this material universe. It is this latter interpretation that has inspired the vision, birth, and execution of Pneuma Hagion, a musical entity of the same etymological root. Hailing from San Antonio, Texas, and consisting of one solitary member, Pneuma Hagion plays a brand of bleak and oppressive death metal that reflects this hopelessness of the individual’s consciousness held captive by an imperfect and often punishing physical existence. The band’s inaugural 2015 demo, entitled “Trinity I,” constructs a cavernous atmosphere that perfectly represents the unsettling displacement and primitive isolation felt by the awakened Gnostic, followed by his consequent desire to escape this illusion. With musical influences ranging from Blasphemy and Beherit to Evoken and Thergothon, Pneuma Hagion has succeeded in combining the malevolence of bestial black metal with the utter despair of the bleakest varieties of death/doom, resulting in a sound that may conjure a comparison to the potential offspring that might have resulted from an unholy wedding of Demoncy and Incantation. Self-recorded, self-produced, and originally self-disseminated in very limited numbers, “Trinity I” is now offered more widely on cassette format at the humble invitation of Nuclear War Now! As a visual complement to the recording, the artwork of William Blake was appropriately chosen due to his explicit Gnostic sympathies, which are evidenced in his body of work in both art and poetry. In the words of Blake, "Thy Heaven doors are my Hell Gates." In the case of Pneuma Hagion, this Hell might very well be interpreted as the cruel, sadistic, and doomed universe in which we are entrapped.