Since reactivating his Soul Assassins label in 2017, DJ Muggs has been on a remarkable hot streak, releasing albums with notable underground emcees like Roc Marciano and Mach-Hommy. These often brilliant records remain true to the dark, hazy sound Muggs pioneered with Cypress Hill back in the early '90s, while sounding fully relevant in the era of Griselda and Dump Gawd. This is all especially welcome considering how iffy the producer's occasional forays into dubstep, trip-hop, and alternative rock have been. Donning his ...
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Since reactivating his Soul Assassins label in 2017, DJ Muggs has been on a remarkable hot streak, releasing albums with notable underground emcees like Roc Marciano and Mach-Hommy. These often brilliant records remain true to the dark, hazy sound Muggs pioneered with Cypress Hill back in the early '90s, while sounding fully relevant in the era of Griselda and Dump Gawd. This is all especially welcome considering how iffy the producer's occasional forays into dubstep, trip-hop, and alternative rock have been. Donning his Black Goat alias, previously used for his collaborations with South African meme-rappers Die Antwoord, Muggs surprisingly surfaced on Sacred Bones in 2021 with Dies Occidendum, his first instrumental full-length. The album's ten tracks are filled with slow, lurching rhythms caked in soot and smoke, with macabre samples from old horror movies instead of rhymed verses. Much of the record would've been filed under the illbient subgenre if it had appeared in the mid-'90s, as it's not too far off from what Spectre and Prince Paul were cooking up for the WordSound label during that time, but there's also a major presence of skittering drum machines recalling trap at its grimiest. "The Chosen One" is essentially a witch house track, with ghostly moans and funereal organs spelling out doom underneath clattering beats. "Nigrum Mortem" is a tantalizing bit of heavy psych, with smoldering guitars and fuzzed-out organ brewing underneath big, choppy drums. Other tracks like "Liber Null" and "Veni Vidi Amavi" keep up the suspense with skillful beat changes, as well as harrowing movie clips. Sweeping string loops and sudden beat drops make "Annica" one of the album's most frightening moments, even if texturally it seems like one of the lightest tracks here, apart from the haunting piano interlude "Alphabet of Desire" or the closing piece "Transmogrification," which mainly consists of chirping crickets and crackling flames. It's readily apparent that Muggs takes great joy in exploring the dark arts, and like his best work, Dies Occidendum is just as illuminating as it is grim and foreboding. ~ Paul Simpson, Rovi
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