Death's Design (2001) - Diabolical Masquerade

 

Released in 2001, Death's Design is the fourth and final album from Diabolical Masquerade, the avant-garde black metal project of Anders "Blakkheim" Nyström, best known for his work with Katatonia. With this record, Blakkheim didn’t just end the project—he obliterated it in a blaze of experimental chaos. Death’s Design is not a collection of songs, but a 61-part fever dream masquerading as the soundtrack to a horror film that never existed. And that was the point.

The album's concept—that it was composed as a score for an unnamed, possibly fictional movie—was later revealed to be a deliberate fabrication. But the illusion holds. Listening to Death’s Design truly feels like watching a cursed film flicker to life in your imagination, one scene at a time. It is an album steeped in misdirection, dread, and broken forms.

Tracklist (Condensed by Movements):

The album is broken into 20 "movements," containing 61 short tracks—many under a minute long. Listing each individual track would miss the forest for the trees; the real power lies in how the movements unfold as larger suites:

1. Part I: Overture

2. Part II: The Hunt

3. Part III: The Crypt

4. Part IV: The Transformation

5. Part V: The Remains

6. Part VI: The Sphere

7. Part VII: The Infernal Resurrection

8. Part VIII: The Dark Side

9. Part IX: The End

10. Part X: The Return

11. Part XI: The Command

12. Part XII: The Disruption

13. Part XIII: The Abyss

14. Part XIV: The Apocalypse

15. Part XV: The Funeral

16. Part XVI: The Death of the Star

17. Part XVII: The Awakening

18. Part XVIII: The Final Sleep

19. Part XIX: The Descent

20. Part XX: The End Complete

While divided into tiny segments, Death’s Design is best experienced as one continuous work. There are no traditional verses or choruses, no hooks or even clear-cut melodies to cling to. Instead, the album unfolds like a delirious opera of fragmentation—twisting from black metal fury into gothic chamber pieces, ambient textures, prog excursions, jazz noir passages, and haunted carnival music. And yet, through all this variety, there’s a sinister cohesion. The atmosphere never lets up.

The guitar work, as expected from Blakkheim, is versatile—ranging from jagged tremolo bursts and dissonant riffing to clean, echo-laced arpeggios. But this record is about far more than guitar. Strings, piano, whispered vocals, mechanical noises, and sudden silences populate the sonic landscape, all woven together under the guiding production hand of Dan Swanö. Swanö not only contributes drums but ensures the mix preserves clarity in the chaos. Every screech and sigh feels meticulously placed.

The experience often borders on the theatrical. At times, Death’s Design feels like Danny Elfman conducting a black metal band in a broken-down opera house, with scenes cutting in and out like corrupted film reels. There are nods to horror scores, noir soundtracks, avant-garde classical, and second-wave black metal—often all within the same movement. One moment you’re buried in blast beats and shrieks, the next you’re floating through a ghostly interlude that feels more chamber music than metal.

Certain sections demand special mention: Movement III seethes with eerie orchestration and jagged aggression, Movement V flirts with doom-laden jazz that feels almost Lynchian, and Movement XIV introduces chilling whispers that linger long after the album ends. But isolating “tracks” misses the point. Death’s Design isn’t about highlights—it’s about immersion.

Emotionally, the album charts a descent into madness. There's confusion, horror, a few glimpses of fragile beauty, and finally resignation. The final movement doesn’t offer resolution; instead, it fades out like a reel running out, ending mid-scream, unresolved. This isn’t a story with a clear plot—it’s a hallucination, a psychological spiral rendered in fractured sound.

Death’s Design is not for casual listening. It demands attention, patience, and a willingness to embrace disorientation. But for those open to its vision, it offers something rare: a truly singular work of extreme metal that transcends genre and convention. It’s black metal as theater, as cursed cinema, as avant-garde art.

If you’ve ever been captivated by albums like The Sham Mirrors by Arcturus or Ulver’s Themes from William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, this belongs in your collection. It doesn’t just bend genre—it warps it beyond recognition. A masterwork of beautiful decay, and a fitting, brilliant epitaph for Diabolical Masquerade.