Alright, gonna go through this discog album by album.
PROCREATION OF THE INNER TEMPLE
The debut isn't really relevant to me, it's too undeveloped and hard on the ears and why even bother with it when they have six masterpieces you could be listening to?
FROM THE LOST YEARS
This album is so murky and weird and I love it. I love the copious use of acoustic guitar that barely gels with the rest of the music and everything being out of tune all the time. And I still find it easier to listen to than Deathcult which can be rather harsh and trebly. It's a bit messy but it also has maybe the highest peaks of their whole discography. I love the final two tracks especially and "The Gravefields" will always be one of their definitive statements for me, especially lyrically, even if it's not that characteristic musically of the style they would develop. And Corchado's vocal performance is fucking insane, maybe even better than on Deathcult.
DEATHCULT FOR ETERNITY: THE TRIUMPH
The first Chasm album I heard, and probably the quintessential one. It's hard to even pinpoint a single weak song in this tracklist, where every other album has several. Don't really have anything to say about this album that hasn't been said better by no country or one of his alt accounts.
PROCESSION TO THE INFRAWORLD
Gonna go against the grain and rank this fairly low - it's probably their most aggressive album and that's not really my favorite style of theirs. It's also their worst-produced album outside of the debut. It's still an amazing, tight-as-fuck album that always seems to end too soon.
CONJURATION OF THE SPECTRAL EMPIRE
The accusations of bloat that get leveled at Spell seem more fitting to Conjuration imo. The bookends and tracks 5-7 are great but outside of that I find this album drags a bit (by The Chasm standards, anyway)
THE SPELL OF RETRIBUTION
I'll defend this album to the death, sure it's a bit overlong but it peaks high and even the fluff kicks ass so it never feels like it's stalling for time even though most of the heavy hitters come in the second half. Remains of the Covenant, Retribution of the Lost Years, The Omnipotent Codex are all amazing and The Eclipse is just bonkers, if I had to nitpick that song I'd say it's so climactic it's almost gratuitous. The Chasm in general is one of my favorite bands to run to, and this album in particular is my favorite for that use, and every time I get to
that part around the halfway point of The Eclipse I just get so insanely pumped.
FARSEEING THE PARANORMAL ABYSM
I didn't always love this album but it has grown on me and I'm going to rank it fairly highly because it stands out in their discography for being a slight departure from their usual style without being below par for it. This is The Chasm at their most soundscapey, with every other song a gargantuan instrumental. It's the soundtrack to a long and sorrowful journey through a senseless world, and I guess that's what all of The Chasm is about really, but this might be the dreariest of all their albums, between the mournful, doomy epics like Vault to the Voyage and the closer, and the absence of those so-characteristic euphoric climaxes, you know the ones. Maybe it's not their tightest release, but I can forgive this journey a few detours because the final destination is one of the most monumental fucking closing tracks in all of metal.
A CONSCIOUS CREATION FROM THE ISOLATED DOMAIN: PHASE I
People call this Farseeing but without vocals, and I don't agree at all. It completely lacks the dynamism of Farseeing. The tracklist indicates that it's split into four discrete movements, but it just feels like this unending maelstrom of riffs, like I'm listening to a Deathcult Arrival-esque opening track that just goes on and on for 65 minutes. That it's one of their least interesting albums has nothing to do with the absence of vocals. It just doesn't go anywhere. They need to slow it down and doom it up more and throw in more ominous synth interludes or whatever.
Final, basically impossible, 50% arbitrary ranking;
- From the Lost Years
- Deathcult for Eternity
- The Spell of Retribution
- Farseeing the Paranormal Abysm
- Conjuration of the Spectral Empire
- Procession to the Infraworld
- A Conscious Creation from the Isolated Domain: Phase I
- Procreation of the Inner Temple