Si monvmentvm reqvires, circvmspice
| Si monvmentvm reqvires, circvmspice | ||||
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| Studio album by Deathspell Omega | ||||
| Released | February 2004 | |||
| Genre | Black metal, Avant-garde metal | |||
| Length | 77:47 | |||
| Label | Norma Evangelium Diaboli | |||
| Deathspell Omega chronology | ||||
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| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |    |
| Sputnikmusic | |
Si monvmentvm reqvires, circvmspice is the third full-length album by avant-garde black metal band Deathspell Omega. The album title is Latin for 'If you seek his monument, look around you', from the epitaph of Christopher Wren's tomb at St Paul's Cathedral. This album is the first part in a trilogy of albums released by the band, followed by 'Fas - Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum' in 2007 and 'Paracletus' in 2010. The trilogy has been described as "a theological dispute on the divine essence of the Devil, the roles and virtues of faith and the place of man therein", particularly from a Theistic Satanist perspective. One interpretation of the purpose of the album is to examine and proclaim that "Satan is pervading every part of our material and metaphysical realms and how Man’s relationship with Him should be one of reverence and devotion." The album draws on themes of putrefaction, decomposition, antinatalism, as well as the work of the French philosopher Georges Bataille.
The track "Malign Paradigm" is a tribute to the Swedish black metal band Malign, and their track "Ashes and Bloodstench". "Drink the Devil's Blood" is a re-recording of a song of the same title appearing on the band's first album, Infernal Battles. The re-interpretation of this station contains completely new lyrics dealing with a Eucharistic theme, in keeping with the more cerebral lyrical approach of this and subsequent releases.
The artwork is "both a statement on the Logos, providing metaphysical keys to a certain approach on reality, and a statement on our faith and it's concrete anchors and applications in the world as every human being can actually experience it. But keep in mind: the light that illuminates us is the very same that blinds us too." The band note that the line "The heart of a lost angel is in the earth" from the track 'Sola Fide I' is strongly linked with the artwork. The line is taken from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem "A Drama of Exile", which is a retelling of the exile of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden and Satan's role in it.
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