Home › Interviews › VIOGRESSION’s Thaumaturgic Veil and the Alchemy of Vibration, Death, and Infinity

VIOGRESSION’s Thaumaturgic Veil and the Alchemy of Vibration, Death, and Infinity

By capitalchaostv on June 26, 2025 • ( 0 )

Milwaukee death metal veterans Viogression return with Thaumaturgic Veil, an album that dives headfirst into the metaphysical: altered states, vibrational frequencies, esoteric consciousness, and the eternal. It’s a towering work of mystical death metal that translates abstract philosophy into crushing riffs and guttural vocals. We caught up with the band to unpack how they transformed these cosmic concepts into sound—and how a dream from the past shaped a song of remembrance and tragedy.

Metaphysics in the Moshpit: Channeling Frequency into Fury

Thaumaturgic Veil explores vibrational frequency, esoteric intent, and altered consciousness. How did you translate those abstract ideas into the visceral world of death metal?

We embedded those themes in both the lyrics and the music—through sound design, frequencies, riffs, rhythms, and atmosphere. Every song intro sets a sonic and philosophical stage for the track that follows, drawing from ancient and infinite ideas. Except for “Light Harvester”—that one, Lief didn’t want to open with an intro. Each intro touches on a vision of infinity, tied to the thematic focus of the song.

Here’s a breakdown of the journey:

“Enûma Elish Ilū” begins with the vibrational origin of the cosmos—sound as creation, life as frequency.
“Jinx (Vampiric Immortality)” explores eternal life through vampirism, neural will, and consciousness beyond death.
“Akhara Aakasa” channels the Earth’s electromagnetic resonance—the Schumann frequency—into a dissonant, neural ritual.
“Renumeration” dives into frequencies as the language of dreams and nightmares—neural intent shaped in sonic code.
“Samsara Ananta” reveals rebirth as cyclical energy, echoing infinite transference of consciousness.
“Travesty öv Darkness” suggests extraterrestrial origins of consciousness, encoded in frequency and awakened through intention.
“Heqet Saeculum” mirrors society’s collapse in chaotic vibration—symbolizing infinity through renewal and endurance.
“Pummeled” acts as a sonic protest against oppression—a discord in collective vibrational harmony that screams into eternity.
“Amaranthine Kairos” serves as a manual for accessing quantum reality, consciousness unbound by time.
“Superposition” fuses life and death into quantum duality, a Schrödinger-like exploration of infinite potential.
“Buki’s Dream” is a meditative elegy written in 1994 by the late Bryan Jaeger—he dreamed the melody.
“Vulnus Sclopetarium” mourns Bryan’s death and the tragic aftermath. The song closes with “Om Sadgati” repeated three times—one for each life lost.
“Ouroboros Noesis” invokes Hermetic truths, where vibrational intent drives enlightenment—an infinite feedback loop of mind and matter.
“Eaten by Flies” proposes microbial intelligence rooted in vibrational signaling—consciousness encoded in molecular resonance.
“Aeternitas Aevum” is a meditation on the soul’s infinite nature—life as temporary vibration; consciousness as the abyss.
“As the Light Fades” reflects the liminal space between life’s start and end—a death that is also a birth.
“Adrothia Akaru” draws from Choronzon’s chaos, testing the soul’s navigational intent through disordered frequency.
“Summon” is an invocation, uniting the self with cosmic forces through Crowleyan ritual and vibrational alignment.
“Light Harvester” envisions an alien invasion harvesting humanity for its quantum light—a poetic end marked by chaos and collapse, yet consciousness survives, eternal.

The album title hints at magical transformation. Do you see Thaumaturgic Veil as a form of modern alchemy?

Definitely—both personally and creatively. Music is alchemic in nature. It’s intentional energy transference that resonates with the listener’s consciousness. I once read about a savant who saw numbers as vivid sensory experiences due to synesthesia. This album is like that for me—a synesthetic expression of vibration, frequency, intent, numbers, magic, and infinity. Every track reflects that idea, both lyrically and sonically.

Myth and mysticism run deep in this album. What were your main influences?

A mix of sources: ancient mythology like the Epic of Gilgamesh and Enuma Elish, Hermetic texts like the Corpus Hermeticum, and writers like Aleister Crowley. We also drew from quantum mechanics, neuroscience, string theory, and spiritual thinkers like Paramahansa Yogananda and Robert Anton Wilson. Thresholds of the Mind by Bill Harris was another big one. There’s a lot of ground covered, from the metaphysical to the microbial.

With such a scattered production process, how did it all come together?

Everyone recorded where they felt most comfortable. I’ve worked with Chris at Belle City Sound since 2008, so recording vocals there was natural. He’s always been excellent to work with. Despite the geographic spread, the vision kept everything cohesive—maybe a little chaotic, maybe a little magical.

You’ve always balanced heaviness with eerie atmosphere. How did you shape the sound on this record?

That eerie heaviness has always been our intention since the beginning. Thaumaturgic Veil is just an evolution of that vision. It still sounds like Viogression—just deeper, more dimensional. Whether it’s guttural vocals, microtonal textures, or melodic leads, they all serve that tension between the finite and the eternal.

You’ve been around since the late ’80s, but this record feels incredibly modern. How do you balance legacy and evolution?

That old-school energy is just part of us. Jason was a founding member of Morta Skuld, and those roots run deep. But we’re always evolving. Thaumaturgic Veil is what happens when you take those early visions and keep expanding them, spiritually and musically.

What was it like resurrecting “Buki’s Dream,” written by Bryan Jaeger in 1994?

Deeply emotional. Bryan was a close friend—his nickname was “Buki” because of the tribal tattoo on his face. He once woke up from a dream at my place with this melody in his head, and he recorded it immediately. Later, we added a sample of my daughter fussing with her bottle—it was morning, like in his dream. When we revisited it, Lief and John built onto his idea. I think Bryan would’ve loved what we created.

If Viogression could summon a mythical creature with your music, who would it be?

A dragon or the Sphinx. Hopefully meditating and headbanging to the album.

You’re playing inside a black hole. Time is folding. What snack floats by during “Superposition”?

Ronnie James Dio, throwing the horns, riding a Pop-Tart.

Thaumaturgic Veil isn’t just a death metal album—it’s a ritual, a journey, and an exploration of consciousness wrapped in distortion and dread. Viogression have pulled off something rare: translating the abstract into the audible, and making it heavy as hell.