If Current 93 was darkly difficult before -- all scarred industrial landscapes, ticker-tape percussion, and Gregorian goth-folk -- there was no longer any doubt where the band stood after Imperium's release.

With four dissolving, soundtrack-ish introductory title tracks taken to varying levels of old seer, spoken word, and slasher techno, the album's impact largely relied on the listener's acceptance of experimental repetition.

It could be unreal and disconcerting, much like Mark Spybey and Mick Harris' successful Bad Roads Young Drivers, just as it could be irritatingly, compositionally oblique.

By this point, it was too early to tell if Imperium was a fitting end to a phase or the start of a sharp, steep decline.