“Black metal bands from Cuba are rare”. I’d certainly agree with that statement. “Through Blackness, And Remote Places”, which to my discredit I initially misread as “Through Bracknell, and Remote Places”, is the band’s third album and there’s a swagger and confidence about it.
Fiery, fizzing and forceful is what “Sons of the Grand Cosmic Emanation”, the opening track, is. It’s from the world of of Immortal and Bathory and those old school people. The album’s sound deliberately harks back to those days. Thrusting, authoritative and hard-hitting, “Sons of the Grand Cosmic Emanation” comes in spirit not from Cuba, but from a cold and frosty place. A nice scream takes us into “Mesmerised by the Pale ghost Moonlight”. We’re now in another fiery cauldron of bone-shaking melody. The compelling drum pattern and sirening guitars fill the air with intensity. “An Unholy Gathering” has a little more sophistication. Dark and dangerous, I smelt Carpathian Forest. It picks up in its swirling and turbulent way. The rustiness recalls Old Man’s Child as it rumbles through the veins. This is old school black metal. A merciless and uncompromising riff signals further blood-letting. “Delivering the Deep Soul” is the violent offering. It leads to the heavy blackened doom of “The Lightbringer”. An absence of light is what there is. Then “The Eternal Return” takes us into still murkier territory and lingering darkness. The pressure builds up. The style is, as ever, old fashioned and grainy. A Judas Iscariot cover completes the album suitably in a blanket of ghastly grey images but before that the title track presents a mix of bleak and desperate scenes, and lively instrumentalism but I sense that the tank had run out of gas, as this album’s explosive beginnings had given way to technical competence and rancid atmospheres.
Effective in its atmosphere, there’s nothing outstandingly new here. After “Sons of the Grand Cosmic Emanation”, this album went through the necessary evil black metal motions with technical accomplishment and clever movements but not in a way that made me shiver or feel as if I were engulfed in a cauldron. Nevertheless “Through Blackness and Remote Places” is a good tribute from Cuba to Norway.
(6.5/10 Andrew Doherty)
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