Formation: 2006
Location: Pennsylvania
Style: Black metal with a strong focus on satanic, occultist, demonic, and esoteric concepts.
Personnel: Hag (vocals); Wretch (guitars); T. (drums)
Latest release: The Infernal Hierarchies, Penetrating the Threshold of Night
Pact might be one this generations best representatives of USBM, regardless of their modesty concerning the black metal scene, genre, and sub-genres. As the band members say, Pact play whatever “comes natural” to them. On a whole, these natural impulses of theirs sound like black metal, damn good black metal, not only because they have a great sound, but also because they’re unique. They don’t think inside or outside the box, they burn that metaphorical box and dig for what’s hidden beneath. Welcome to the subterranean darkness of the underground, and say hello to Pact. One of the best things about Pact, as musicians, is they’re very creative and wise. They spread their knowledge by encrypting attention-grabbing material in their music, especially in their latest album, The Infernal Hierarchies, Penetrating the Threshold of Night.
“Of course with playing black metal as a band, there are many bands from all over that we enjoy listening to that play black metal, but we never really have tried to fit in with any specific sub-genre of black metal, we just play what comes natural to us.”
Pact was a project that was meant to be ever since the members mingled in previous bands among one another. Indeed, this is magnetism working wonders at its best. “We had all previously played in other bands with each other, and we came together with the idea of creating what has become Pact… we definitely met each other through our interests in music.”
Music is an amazing form of art. For a lot of music-lovers, including Pact themselves, metal is incredibly easy to obsess about. Seriously, who here isn’t at least a little obsessed with metal? Pact says it straightforward. “We all are obsessed with metal and making music, there is nothing else like it in the world.”
Like everything else, Pact only say what needs to be said, so we may never know the stories of how these three musicians chose their individual names: T., Wretch, and Hag. “We all have personal reasons for what was chosen.”
Remember, there’s no “I” in Pact! “Our music is about our band as a whole not one of us individually.”
With the band’s lack of facebook and twitter pages, some of you might have been wondering, do Pact play live shows? Yes, as a matter of fact, they do! “We do play shows when things work out good. At the end of June we are playing in Baltimore, Maryland, and in September we will be playing Wrath of the Goat Festival in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.”
Pact elaborate onthe profound consciousness, themes, and topics found in The Infernal Hierarchies, Penetrating the Threshold of Night, which includes Baal-Zebub, Gamchicoth, Andramelch, and much more. With their crafty ways of working ancient esoteric knowledge into their music, they’ve invoked some of the most ancient demons in history of demons, gods, and demonized gods. The following paragraph explains it all, and read carefully because if it doesn’t make you want to buy the album, probably nothing else will.
“The Infernal Hierarchies, Penetrating the Threshold of Night is a sonic work of Black Magic Invocation, the names set forth within the songs are Demonized forms of the ancient Gods of Canaanite civilizations long forgotten, they each correspond to the Tree of Daath, which is an esoteric axis mundi, the Dark side of the Kabalistic Tree of Life. These are the Qlippothic seats of Power, however Gamchicoth is not the name of one such Demon, rather the name of the Demon Astaroths dwelling place within the Inverted Tree, also known as Chesed Inverse, the album serves to call into consciousness these Infernal beings of Darkness, their invocations and seals are given in the album’s booklet.”
The ideas, ideals, themes, and topics in this album are deep below the surface of the norm, and miles above average. Satan is probably one of the most common names in metal, yet even as wicked as Pact are, the loose name of Satan is probably the most neglected in their music. And Pact makes wise choices in doing that because it takes a fair amount of wisdom in the first place!
“These ideals and themes deal with ‘The Many’ rather than with ‘The One,’ there are many aspects of Satan and as you afore mentioned, the name has been rather loosely thrown about the black metal genre since it’s dawn, it is not Satan alone that I work with, it is Esoterica that I am concerned with, not just simple surface ideals and concepts.”
The future is looking bright for these lords of darkness! “As of now we have those shows lined up, and we are also working on new material for a third full length album.”
Did you hear that? Pact are already in the works of a third full length album. How exciting! There’s no question about it, this upcoming album is going to be as fascinating and musically excellent as everything else they’ve done so far.
Wretch and Hag are also in a band called Tunnels of Typhon. Anyone who digs Pact ought to keep an eye on TOT for later, as well as other projects that are interconnected to Pact. As of now, there’s not much happening beyond Pact, but in good time, it will. “As of now the majority of our focus is all on Pact but projects like TOT and other things will happen in the future.”
Now that Pact has fully captured our attention, who wants to preview or buy the album? “For a listen they are previewing the album on Moribund’s website where it is also available for purchase on CD or digitally.”
There we have it, now we know Pact. They’re lords of darkness, commanders of demons, invokers of the strangest spirits, and wizzes of Esoterica, but most of all, they’re very devoted musicians and fantastic metallers. When looking for gnarly black metal embodied by arcane understandings of Hell, history, demons, gods, beasts, and beings, Pact are the band to turn to.