Every form of art encompasses an endless search.
An attempt to understand our origins, our course, our role in this world… our own truth.
The labyrinth of our thoughts is defined by the symbolisms we create.
As is so on Τhe Slayerking song “Black Mother of the Lord of Light”.
It contains symbols about our deepest thoughts, the mystery of it all, the unknown, the universe.
As the voice and soul of the band, Efthimis Karadimas, explains to us, black can lead us to the depths where everything is born!
As soon as they come to the surface, they take on the role that we choose to give them.
“It is where all religions, the messiahs and everything about our salvation relate to.
It is the never-ending effort to understand where we come from, where we are going and what is our role”, he mentions.
The mind is a labyrinth. A small sparkle, an image, a doubt can create a maze of thoughts.
Repetitive thoughts and images that drill down in your brain…they reach deep and they start to grow.
The composition and the meaning
Just like the main riff of “Black Mother of the Lord of Light”.
In terms of composition, the song keeps you alert with a hypnotic melody, leading you to its journey.
It challenges you to “activate” your senses as well as the need to search for your own truth.
A song that, as Efthimis explains, “Its main riff is influenced by Slayer.”
Although somewhat strange for a Doom Metal band, however as he says: “I know it may sound weird, but it’s real.
Listen to that vibrato in the third note that digs deeper and deeper into the brain” he points out.
“It repeats itself in a monotonous manner like a big drilling machine reaching black gold beneath the surface”, Efthimis explains.
“Our gold is our existential reason. Why we are here and where are we going after”, he says.
Man has always been endlessly searching… In an attempt to find an explanation for his world, his reason for existing.
It is in our nature to constantly desire to know if our course would lead us somewhere.
The song
The concept of the song, as Efthimis mentions is this:
“To present, in an allegorical fashion, the struggle of a man to find the courage to overcome his inner weaknesses.
To become wiser and take advantage of the knowledge to improve his life.
Yet soon he realizes that any effort against his broken nature is futile.
And then follows anger and stress, that unleash the blackest of demons within, about to consume his soul.”
But demons reside within our minds. They are figments of our imagination, created by ourselves alone.
They create doubts and obsessions, obstacles on the path to knowledge!
“You know, life is an enigma; you try to come up with convenient answers to big questions only to end up with more.
Knowledge is backfiring somehow and that’s a bad thing really”, Efthimis goes on.
“And don’t believe spiritual people don’t get angry. Everyone gets. The thing is how they manage it.
Simple people burst and let it out around them. Spiritual ones lock it in and try to decode it there.
This battle, you know, takes place inside them..in the dark. The whole fight takes place in darkness.
Imagine what sort of monsters lie in there and what forces are required not to get lost in the maze of your mind.
Black Mother is the mind. That deep, dark womb is made of neurons that have given birth to the Lord of Light.
The prophets. The saviors. It all is created in there before they crawl out onto the real world.
So did religions and their holy people.
Those ones masses wait for, to come and save the world” he continues.
In the end, everything, any fear, any doubt, any higher power, lies inside of us.
We are the unknown, and through our darkness, we shall draw our course.
As long as we walk the line without fear.
“To put it in a single sentence.
The higher man gets on the ladder of knowledge, the heavier the burden of life becomes.
That’s unfair.”
