A new project here from a duo of Italians who also play in Hideous Divinity, Bedsore and SVNTH among others. It’s only 3 tracks and 20 minutes in length but don’t let that put you off as it contains more heft and aggression than many would cram into a long career. This is incredibly powerful and rabid, furrowing, orthodox blackness that seems designed to swallow the listener whole. It’s also biblical lyrically and based around Patristics “the most prominent writings of the pastors and theologians of the Church from the end of the Apostolic period until the beginning of the Medieval period.” You need not get bogged down in that unless you wish to though, the bile and vehemence of the music speaks loudly enough for all to hear!

The title track slams in with resounding and rebounding drums and spiteful guitars strangulating the ears before rearing up and tearing off in a welter of extremity. Vocals are just as vicious and bite away full of spite and malice, rising to hollered out yells as the music blasts and cleaves away. Utterly destructive and malicious although broken up slightly by some tapping drum rolls and a bit of ambience its not long before we are pitched down the next heaving chasm into darkness.

The dense and diabolical sermon spills into the two-part Praescriptio. There’s a technical and precise delivery from the guitars and the drumming forms a bedrock of bouncing discourse. Strange sounds perpetuate at times and the vocals are relentless and dictatorial. The first tornado may well be short and end with a bridge of instrumental darkness but the second is an unrelenting maelstrom of ravenous filth. Fans of DsO and BaN at their most venomous and obtuse may well find themselves drawn to this display of arrogant aggression but one thing is assured, it’s not for the weak of heart and its stifling mass shows little in the way of mercy. An assured and confident 1st attack here, if it had been double the length and a full album, I seriously wonder if I would have survived the course. Perhaps that’s a test for the future.

(7.5/10 Pete Woods)

https://www.facebook.com/Patristicblackmetal

https://patristic.bandcamp.com/releases