Tag Archives: Tetraskel

Underground Sounds: Tetraskel – Preindoeuropean Metal

Label: Independent
Band: Tetraskel
Origin: Spain

Somewhere in time, we became the Indo-European Europe, that we are today. Somewhere in time there was a before and that is exactly which is used as inspiration by the band Tetraskel from Basque country in Spain. A band I have not been able to find out much about, but their sound is colossal.

Whether you believe that before all of this we had the Hyperborean times or such, we know that life was brutal, harsh and primitive in the days before what we now call civilization. I’m not writing here to defend or attack our current day, but trying to paint with broad strokes what Tetraskel is about. The name itself is a shortened form of tetraskelion, which refers to the pagan swastika symbol. The band has a specific kind of artwork they use, with sort of vague depictions of humans, combined with animals in a peculiar harmony that suggests a closeness we hardly understand in this time and age.

The music is slow, droning and progressing with megalithic strides. Slow and laborous, but with a blazing epic sound to it. The music sounds very grand, impressive in its relative simplicity. The fundament is a heavy beating drum, but the calmly soaring guitars are pretty much steadily giving of that same toiling sound. The sound is a bit too wavery to compare with some of the heavy as hell stoner bands, like Conan or such, who have that monolithic heaviness. Halfway through this album I had my doubts about this one-man project.

While not having vocals is often a way of shifting the focus to the music, Tetraskel seems to lack a certain variety in their songs, but do they need it? The majestic doom feels not unlike Atlantean Kodex or even a bit of the later work by Earth at times. The heavy sound of the band has that black edge to it, which feels so incredibly dark and foreboding. It’s perhaps the knowledge that this time of the Pre-Indo Europeans is soon to be over. That’s what Tetraskel is all about, the piercing guitar work, the otherworldliness and grandeur. A forgotten age illuminated with a sound that adresses the tragic passage of time and the