My name's Matt Widener,1 and my goal with Iä! is to marry three of my favorite things: Lovecraft, death metal, and roleplaying games. Read on. Plumb the depths of geekiness.

What is "Iä!"?
Iä! is a sort of exaltation, a greeting or general cry of nefarious excitement, often found in Mythos tomes. It's usually bellowed by lunatic cultists while hailing and summoning the sanity-squashing powers We Weren't Meant To Know. Its literal translation is obscured, perhaps too complex for our minds to fully grasp the meaning of, but we do know that, upon witnessing the full grotesque splendor of Shub-Niggurath, you'd better shout Iä! a couple times, just in case she cares. Iä! encapsulates the stance of this music: that of the cultists, madmen, and servitor creatures who beg for visits by beings so powerful, that to look upon one would shatter the mind, stop the heart. Though they're more likely alien races, they are gods to us, and the sudden knowledge—like the final italicized lines in a Lovecraft story—that they exist make us infinitesimally insignificant. This was Lovecraft's thrust, what he coined comsmicism. There's no way for a death metal song to take us to that brink, therefore cheesy Deep One chanting and plodding double-kick riffs must suffice!

Dorkitude taken to another level...
Oh my, I've actually fashioned the lyrics from Cthulese, that distinctive jumble of consonants Lovecraft represented the unknowable and unnamable with. Each song's lyrics are taken from revelatory Mythos tomes, interpreted by Miskatonic experts, and usually detail a Great Old One, or other such topics. But there is a larger story, one that can only be deciphered by listening to and analyzing the entire album; for you see, the tomes, the songs, all of it, reference each other, hint to apocalyptic events, and—in their encoded way—spell out our demise.

The Esoteric Order of Dagon Choir and The Dunwich Players
In addition to enlisting the scholastic assistance of the best and brightest of Miskatonic University, I've penetrated the Innsmouth inner circle—though the foul rites they made me perform have scarred me both physically and mentally—and commissioned the Esoteric Order of Dagon Choir,2 led by Landon Marsh, to chant, bleat, bark, and growl on these songs. I've hired the Dunwich Players3—though many of their numbers have gone missing—to lend their atonal symphonic aesthetics, as well.

Apocalyptic, Cosmic, Sanity-Destroying Death Metal
Those of you familiar with Bolt Thrower and Obituary should quickly warm to these songs, as they're composed in that late '80s/early '90s death metal style. When I think of Cthulhu, Azathoth, Shub-Niggurath, and the others, I don't think a million notes blazing by on torrents of blast beats...I think of the more apocalyptic-sounding bands, the ones who found a slow riff and stayed with it throughout the song. It reminds me of ententacled dark autumn skies, where one can hear the shuffling of ghouls beneath the sidewalk and the basement chanting of blood-painted cults.

The Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying Game
And everything—the whole album—can be used as a roleplaying aid, even a whole campaign, in Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu game. Full stats and background info are given as footnotes.

Song 1: Cth'chaat Fhpazeg Xuggub

Listen to song here

"Zuqth'l frix dul wgah'lnar, t'laab wab xl. Cth'chaat fhpazeg Xuggub! Df'ixl sgig p'lyop mglw'balazq ur. Iä! Iä! Ctchonia! B'xil ba Xuggub! Yog-Sothoth v'dr ftohl kalrha. Azathoth v'dr ftohl suulgar."

The Esoteric Order of Dagon Choir chants Zagar Dulfahg Niglax P'flagle, in a reference to four somewhat rare Outer Gods, not often mentioned in the standard Mythos texts. 4 The tome responsible for what little history we know of the four gods is The Ewigenacht Folio,5 currently held by the French government in their sensitive works collection. From this work we know that the four Outer Gods comprise some sort of partnership, or possibly represent four different facets of one unnamed being; the translation is shaky and interpretations abound.

The lyrics from "Cth'chaat Fhpazeg Xubbug" are taken directly from The Ewigenacht Folio, beginning on page 32. The first line, "Zuqth'l frix dul wgah'lnar, t'laab wab xl," though the esteemed xenolinguist Dr. Swinton disagrees with my interpretation, references the aftermath of a world changing event. The word wgah'lnar insinuates the continuity of this event, hinting that it is not just a single occurrence, but a series, perhaps an unending cycle, of events. The fact that zuqth'l is used in place of the more common zuqth'r suggests that this tale is one of special reverence, and we find it is Xuggub, the Eater of Life,6 who is held in high regard amongst whoever penned the original material the Ewigenacht Folio references. It could be that The Great Old Ones themselves have heroes; if so, Xuggub might be such a thing, though pages 60 and 62 of the Folio plainly describe Xuggub's duty: to devour life, more specifically, to consume the world's population inside the caverns of the earth—this would make him a cataclysm to us.

The second line—and song title—"Cth'chaat fhpazeg Xuggub," roughly translates to "A predestined thing (fate) will come to pass through (the mighty) Xuggub." And now, most disturbingly, is the line that was found tattooed on several Italian cultists of Cthulhu last year—"Iä! Iä! Ctchonia!" It was the Miskatonic Xenolinguist Charter, myself heading the translation effort, that finally cross-referenced the word ctchonia (also found in The R'lyeh Text—the infamous "Pyah! Ixp ctchonia!" passage) and deciphered its meaning: an existential dread that the Outer Gods rely on for simpler life forms to self-destruct by. It is, quite simply, a weapon—one that resides in our own mind. Ctchonia is the fragile mind snapping beneath the terror of a reality we can't conceive of existing. This lyric exalts that weapon and suggests that Xuggub enjoys its effects, perhaps relies on it. Because the next lyric, "B'xil ba Xuggub!" is a command, given in (what we xenolinguists call) "aggressive form." B'xil means "to give up" or "line up," and so the first stanza shows our cavern fate: to line up before terrible Xuggub, unable or unwilling to escape our doom.

The final stanza is, in xenolinguistic terms, a "herald" couplet, often used to show inter-deital reverence, subjugation, and—most importantly (to us humans struggling to understand all this)—relationship. While kalrha and suulgar have not yet been deciphered,7 v'dr ftohl without question places Xuggub beneath Azathoth and Yog-Sothoth, and suggests that he is a kind of messenger, in a similar role as Nyarlathotep.

Song 2: P'flagle Glig Romm

Listen to song here

"Blr'ggzf lug xuf'll ich'f'tchoniaz. Xl shul-m'g cth'l ib Shagrak zifl'mah. P'flagle zid b'xil Azathoth. Rug-mglx dur'l yuggo izn'roff. Igraxlyp ahg! P'flagle romm! Draz'l pwai! Iä! Egh'lfzah skraz'scsctho iyech. Cthazshub'mal r'lfwo twulyo czeetcha. P'flagle zid b'xil Yog-Sothoth. Gruk Shoggoth pliss myahgh xl nid'ral."

The lyrics for "P'flagle Glig Romm" quote the Folio, but weave in information not found in the book, but merely hinted at. It is my theory that the lyrics are taken from the original unnamed source, and it recounts the life, death, and rebirth of the Outer God P'flagle.8 The opening line, "Blr'ggzf lug xuf'll ich'f'tchoniaz," delves into complex Mythos belief systems, of which we have little understanding; but if ich'f'tchoniaz is of the same root as digl'lloniaz (found in chapter IV of The Book of Dzyan), the word suggests a form of reincarnation, or—more succinctly—side-stepping death entirely, or finding a way to incorporate death into the very fiber of your life force. Whatever the interpretation, Outer God P'flagle is master of it.

The second line, "Xl shul-m'g cth'l ib Shagrak zifl'mah," borrows from The Book of Dzyan and uses the term shagrak to describe the fear that all life forms have of being extinguished. Note that it is being used mockingly, referring more to lower life forms like us than those of the Outer Gods. "P'flagle zid b'xil Azathoth" roughly translates to "P'flagle learned from (came out of) the behind (the past, but more of a direction, a motion), originating from Azathoth." Again, we see heraldry of relationship here. More work needs to be done to determine the origin of the Outer Gods, and if one can spawn another, but the only known copy of Babbobish's Palimpsest,9 the authority on Great Old One bloodlines and origins, is under Japanese lock and key. Instead, we must infer from the next line, "Rug-mglx dur'l yuggo izn'roff," that yuggo means "born of" in the poetic sense, since izn'roff suggests that P'flagle has always been, and can't possibly be spawned of Azathoth. Rug-mglx tells us that "time is a tool," though Professor Caspar disagrees.

The "ritualistic" portion of the song, usually reserved for threats or ominous portends (sometimes relationships, if the subject is largely unheard of), details the birth, death, and resurrection of P'flagle. "Igraxlyp ahg! P'flagle romm! Draz'l pwai!"—roughly: "Again like the xlyp (a flower from the Xarn system)! P'flagle created (death, purpose)! Became again, never-ending!" Now the Esoteric Order of Dagon Choir chant Iä!, driven to mania by the affirmation of rebirth.

I spent six months translating "Egh'lfzah skraz'scsctho iyech," but ran in circles, confused by iyech, which I initially took to mean "arriving" or "journey end," but later resigned to the more literal translation of "burrow." What this means, I haven't a clue, though skraz'scsctho worries me, as it means "transport" or "embrace." The next line elaborates: "Cthazshub'mal r'lfwo twulyo czeetcha." R'lfwo means "group" and czeetcha means "prophesy." The fact that cthazshub refers to the quartet of doom-bringers, of which only one—Xuggub—has been named, casts the song in an ominous light, if we're to understand that P'flagle's role is to transport Xuggub and his brethren to our world. And if they are to reach us, the final lyric—"Gruk Shoggoth pliss myahgh xl nid'ral"—supposes that even the lowest Shoggoth will dance with exuberance.