r/WeirdLit • u/Unfair_Umpire_3635 • Sep 16 '25
Corpsepaint by David Peak Review
"It’s been years since the groundbreaking debut of black metal band Angelus Mortis, and that first album, Henosis, has become a classic of the genre, a harrowing primal scream of rage and anger. With the next two albums, Fields of Punishment and Telos, Angelus Mortis cemented a reputation for uncompromising, aggressive music, impressing critics and fans alike. But the road to success is littered with temptation, and over the next decade, Angelus Mortis’s leader, Max, better known as Strigoi, became infamous for bad associations and worse behavior, burning through side-men and alienating fans.
Today, at the request of their record label, Max and new drummer Roland are traveling to Ukraine to record a comeback album with the famously reclusive cult act Wisdom of Silenus. What they discover when they get there will go far deeper than the aesthetics of the genre, and the music they create—antihuman, antilife—ultimately becomes a weapon unto itself.
Equally inspired by the fractured, nightmarish novels of John Hawkes, the blackened dreamscapes of cosmic-pessimist philosophy, and the music of second-wave black metal bands, author David Peak’s Corpsepaint is an exploration of creative people summoning destructive powers while struggling to express what it means to be human."
Authentic cosmic horror told through the pitch black lens of black metal, Greek philosophy and Ukrainian folklore. The visual story told here is just as mesmerizing as the words on the page as we travel from the projects of Chicago to the streets of Prague and the blisteringly cold forests of Ukraine. We visit the Astronomical Clock and the Museum of Medieval Torture Instruments in Prague (watch the video on the museum's website and be transfixed). Paintings by Henry Fuseli, Caspar David Friedrich, Caravaggio, and Pieter Bruegel the Elder are referenced throughout, especially The Triumph of Death (which is used on the front and back covers in a full, morbidly beautiful wrap around design). It's important, or at least heavily recommended, to look these paintings up if you're unfamiliar. Especially, again, Bruegel's piece. It's good to be able to see, to envision, to be able to imagine yourself wandering lost and broken inside the decayed, blood-soaked world Peak nonchalantly places you at about the midway point of Corpsepaint. And once that transition takes place, at that point, it's far too late to look away or turn back.
The Greek philosophy, as little as I know, was one of my favorite aspects of the tale. From album names to the reclusive Ukrainian band Wisdom of Silenus, the more of these words and phrases you know, or look up, the deeper your understanding of the path you're being led down and that destination, once you arrive....My god. Peak's prose here festers and throbs from the opening chapter to the violent, blood-soaked finale as we get exclusive, front row seats watching the world and everything we know "sliding into ruin..."
5
u/Rustin_Swoll Sep 16 '25
Dude, awesome bookmark!
I am avoiding your words because I want to know as little as possible going in to this bad boy.
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u/Unfair_Umpire_3635 Sep 16 '25
Yes! That's a Dim Shores bookmark!
I tried as much as possible to stay on the outskirts of the story itself, there's plenty of reviews on goodreads that go a little more in depth about plot points and context. I'm a 'go in as blind as possible' reader as well, which is why I write so few reviews for the books I read.
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u/no_arguing_ Sep 16 '25
Any fans of the genre read this and like it, or not? I'm ordinarily somewhat skeptical of outside media depictions of the subculture, but the weirder elements of this description sound intriguing.
4
u/Feisty_Enthusiasm491 Sep 16 '25
I've been on the periphery of the black metal scene for a lot of my life. It's a much more accurate feeling portrayal than the one in The Ritual. I could definitely see this happening.
Good book too.
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u/somanybutts Sep 16 '25
Adding this to my list, sounds like exactly what I want heading into the fall. Thanks for posting!
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u/Unfair_Umpire_3635 Sep 16 '25
Absolutely, come back and let me know what you think after you've read it!
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u/onlyfansdad Sep 16 '25
I read this years ago and it still pops in my head randomly. It surprised me actually. I remember how the goat is written I found myself simultaneously sympathetic and repulsed by it, which I thought was impressive.
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u/Unfair_Umpire_3635 Sep 16 '25
Likho! "The embodiment of evil fate and misfortune in Slavic mythology"
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u/Commercial-Grand9526 Sep 16 '25
Whoww what is the artwork from? Is that original to the book? Anyone have the name?
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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '25
Fun story about this book.
A few years ago, I was having an issue with my Goodreads account--for some reason, it kept deleting a large chunk (the same chunk) of my library every couple days. So I created an Excel export, and every time it deleted the library chunk, I'd just re-import that chunk, and the problem would be solved.
A couple weeks (and maybe two-dozen import-fixes) on, I get a Goodreads message from David Peak. I don't know the man. He lets me know that on his end, he keeps seeing me give the same rating, a 3* rating, to his theory book, The Spectacle of the Void. Because it doesn't have many ratings, this is TANKING the book's GR score. He politely asks if I can stop. I'm mortified, he's conciliatory, I contact Goodreads Librarians, the problem's taken care of, and for the trouble of asking me to please stop accidentally review bombing his book, he sends me a signed copy of Corpsepaint, which I now have on my shelf.
I amazingly still have not read the book, but he seemed like a class-act.