With only Sorceron remaining as the founding member this US act that has released some of the most glorious epic black metal albums I’ve ever heard culminating in the gargantuan opus “Becoming” three years ago. Round about this point it was rumoured that the band would not tour anymore but release albums but this seems to have changed as a tour is already underway for this new album that has taken three years to put together and conceptually uses the three century old history of the Salem Witch Trials in the 19th century to construct a release of truly magnificent proportions that also pays tribute to their band name origins.
Admittedly I struggled with the album initially as it just didn’t gel but after repeated listens the songs leap out in glorious malevolence that kicks off with “Path Of Broken Glass”. The tune erupts from the speakers with no warning and creates a level of malignancy not heard on the previous albums. The incorporation of immense guitar hooks is intact as “The Cold Lines” continues with a far more sedate guitar melody and much slower pace possessing intrinsic despondency but with hatred laced vocals sat amongst the misery revealing a pernicious character to the tune.
Feedback graces the start of “Of The Outer Darkness” before the tune blasts into life with a pervading air of animosity provided by the exceptional production which has a suffocating intensity about it but retains clarity in all departments. The start to “Will, Wish And Desire” has a wonderful guitar riff and comes across as post black trickery creating poignancy that enables all the elements of the songs subtleties to knit together into one black sheet greyed at it edges due to the experimentalism shown throughout. The myriad of tempo fluctuations allow the underlying concept to be granted full sonic theatrics as “Forever Kingdom Of Dirt” ably shows with its initial savage battering being assuaged by the translucent softer passages the songs dynamics reveal. Contrasting vividly is “Lost Communion”, a black metal assault that is atypical in some sense to the bands normal way of writing as the tune suddenly dives into more post-black brilliance, leaving the closer “Nuummite” to wrap you in some of the calmest and most mesmeric material the band has ever wrote. The song encapsulates an aura of sadness, that funereal like approach that is heart wrenching and wraps you in a shroud of mysticism and ends the release superbly.
(9/10 Martin Harris)
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