Lovecraftian metal horror seems to have emerged recently as something of a niche subgenre, with Tony Miller’s An Augmented Fourth, and today’s (digital) offering, David Peak’s Corpsepaint. I first became aware of Peak through his The Spectacle of the Void - one of a slew of Lovecraft-inspired (pop) philosophy books which followed in the wake of Grahame Harman’s Weird Realism and Eugene Thacker’s In the Dust of this Planet.
Earlier reviews indicated that this was a novel of full-on doom-laden Lovecraftian-Ligottian nihilism by way of a Death Metal theme; unfortunately Corpsepaint is not that novel. In fairness, it is by no means bad - indeed, I have thoroughly enjoyed reading it, and it certainly does the job of evoking a sense of Lovecraftian cosmic dread in parts; it is just that this is a case of the reality not quite living up to the hype. The doom-laden nihilism here is more studied, trying too hard - the sort that male middle-class teenage adolescents are liable to affect when they first get into Death Metal, and less the full-blown Ligottian antinatalism which is likely to shake my cognitive architecture to its core. The intent is there but, in my jaded opinion, the book lacks the langauge to give it effective expression.
As I say, Corpsepaint is not by any means a bad book; indeed, it is different enough from much current horror fare to deserve a place on the modern Lovecraftian collector’s bookshelf - and I shall certainly continue to monitor the author’s literary progress with interest.
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