With a lively crash of thunder this Polish Culte flings open the crypt doors once again, makes a racket for an hour and creeps back home just as the sun begins to rise. This is dramatic horror fuelled black metal from a band who really like long songs. As on previous album Haxan most of these five numbers don’t let up much under the ten minute mark yet they manage to capture attention and keep the listener scared and on the edge of their seat. Is much known about this sinister group of Devil Worshippers? Not really and although there are feelings of sinister grave defilers at work when listening to their music and noting that their singer goes by the name of Mark Of The Devil (I wonder if his mum is Mrs Of The Devil), one cannot help but thinking this is all dished out with a certain amount of humor(ous bones) behind it.
After that crash and evil cackle, sorcery abounds, a warped sound straight out the Evil Dead and all sorts of bells and whistles spill out the abyss before a guitar jangles in and hell is unleashed in the form of ‘Idylls Of The Chosen Damned.’ The central riff sounds like a Ministry one but the orthodox vocal chant is completely at odds as is the ghastly blood drenched croak it goes into. This is fast as the clappers of hell and thrashes away with thick cloying intent. Lyrics are up on Metal Archives and they are a hoot, I quote “Naked cunt on the altar and the head of the betrayer. To thee Dark Lord goes our faithful prayers.” I can’t work this lot out are they doing this as a laugh or what? Musically they kind of seem to take themselves deadly serious, not in say a Behexen way more of a clattering uncouth hammering black thrashing kind of way. It really intrigues me as to how this lot are live! Slowly the track oozes away at complete odds to the way it started and bells toll ominously as old Mark summons his devil with sinister spoken rasps. Somehow they have kept this up for 13 minutes keeping it rotting and rolling till the end. What’s that, a seagull, makes a change from a raven I guess. Shakespearian drama on the vocals taking us into ‘The Passion Of A Sorceress.’ There’s tortured screams and simplistic filthy guitars, it’s like Horna in a way but would they approve? As it really gets going it sounds like everyone is playing a different song, thudding and flailing away but pulling it together with samples and screams morbidly raining down on us. One thing you cannot accuse this of is being uninteresting.
Probably my favourite of these epic spells is ‘Vintage Black Magic.’ It has that arcane feel of musty tombs and strange alchemy about it with creepy choral parts, thudding drums, skewed guitars and even acoustic breaks. Vocals are completely in character, ghastly and cadaverous and rise perfectly over the doom fuelled plod the music has oozed into. Skipping the next number as some tales are best left to the mystery and imagination we finally arrive at last incantation ‘The Devil Intimate’ which does the dirty for almost quarter of an hour. We revert to Polish lyrically for this one which puts a different slant on it. After the last track which I will say simply batters without mercy we are back into the dramatic Satanic sermon with some odd almost jazz like sounds before the song suddenly bursts on fully unleashed kicking and punching in every direction. I guess being ignorant of language and it not being a million miles away by destination I am reminded a bit of the likes of Root here. I suppose this has a similar feel in approach to them as well.
At times this is baffling but at others it is really enjoyable too, I am still left with how seriously to take this lot as my main question but then again it is the music that is most important and they keep it all intriguing and interesting. Henbane certainly takes a few listens but it does eventually poison the system and although not knocking me flat stone cold dead it has definitely cast a pall upon me.
(7.5/10 Pete Woods)
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