I've always wondered why the Cthulhu mythos were never incorporated into black metal. It has anything that I would expect out of the genre, rituals, horrors, madness, etc.

And The Great Old Ones do a great job of painting exactly that, I wasn't into Post Black Metal, sure I had the odd singles here and there, but I never really listened to a Post Metal album. After listening to this, I even got to listen to Ausserwelt by Year Of No Light, and the two artists seem similar.

I even consider" Al Azif" to be a DSBM record, it's so bleak. Since I don't understand much about song structure apart from "Good riff", I'll be taking a look at the lyrics.

At first we got the lyrics for "Al Azif", it describes the story of the person who wrote https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necronomicon a book that details everything about these ancient gods. In that track, our character, Abdul Alhazred, goes fucking insane. We got lines like

Al Azif

For me these seem like DSBM lyrics, they're bleak, they're desperate, they're dreadful.

Listen to "The Truth" and you will find yourself screaming "I'm not crazy" in no time.

The Truth

And now unto my last favorite track from this album, "My Love for the Stars (Cthulhu Fhtagn)". Ok so, I really never thought of Cthuluhu as a "victim", or I've never thought about how he might have felt being locked up.

My Love for the Stars (Cthulhu Fhtagn)

If you want to hear me talk about riffs, then obviously I'd choose "The Truth" intro, up until 1:40. And I didn't forget 3:30 in "Al Azif". Yeah that's about it for now, I've listened to this some 3 weeks ago, wait till you hear about "TEKELI-LI" or "EOD: A Tale of Dark Legacy".

Also if you have made it this far, and can't seem to get enough of the first track "Al Azif", make sure to listen to the Pre Prod. Version I find it very interesting that the track's "Essence" is till in there, even the great riff is there.