The Book of the Worm Motif Analysis: Adramelech and the Art of Flirting with Finality

Adramelech’s Psychostasia deals with the notion that death is not the end but rather an intermediary state that involves various ceremonies and challenges before crossing over onto the afterlife. The lyrics explore this notion within different cultures and time periods. Like all great bands, the lyrics and the music are intertwined in telling a tale and conveying the same ideas. When listening to the album, there is one riff that particularly stands out for how well it expresses this idea in the simplest way possible and is generally the riff that most listeners tend to fixate on when discussing this band.

What interests us here is the first riff played by the distorted guitars. Starting with one hit of the root note power chord that sets the entire melody in to action while establishing the tonal center that puts it all into context. The next three notes form the riff’s main motif which shapes the entire song. Playing a two note minor chord arpeggio before ending on the seventh note of the harmonic minor scale. The motif essentially conveys a combination of melancholy and finality only to be discarded by the last note that begs for resolution that it never receives and thus ends with tension and uncertainty. This shows life as a sorrowful state of existence with death being a passageway into the unknown.

The riff briefly finds stability as it plays with a basic power chord arpeggio before a brief gallop that leads to the previous minor chord arpeggio showing that other hardships occur on the other side. The band end on a variation of the riff’s main motif but played with the minor third to really emphasize the sorrow and adding some dissonance at the end of the riff as there is no minor third for any chord based of the seventh note of the harmonic minor scale. The stability in this riff is fleeting and almost illusory as the band return to that motif very quickly and barely give it time to settle into the listener’s mind. The final motif features the root note minor third played twice before the unresolved ending as it teases the listener with finality that seems imminent only to throw it away at the last second. The cynicism of this idea is an integral element to all great Finnish Death metal.

For Adramelech life is never ending and is a series of challenges to overcome constantly. There is no escape from this and The Book of the Worm shows this clearly and at times hints at greatness for all those willing to accept such trials.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xN1LhsiXZ68