Antidiluvian. Before the (biblical) flood. Curious. It’s always kinda hard delving deep into such naming without lyrics but just take a look at that cover art and your mind goes spinning off into all sorts of weird, elder god haunted realms and dark realms. See that’s what art can do. It’s also a real statement after the stark black and white cover of the initial release of their debut Fane.

I’m going to be a bit circumspect in one area as frankly I’m not entirely certain who is in the band officially. The PR sheet only lists two, I was certain it was at least three and metal archives lists four and so what the split between live duties and studio is I don’t know.

I also gave Fane another (regular) spin just to make sure I could feel the difference more keenly, if any.

So ‘A Lullaby To A Dying World’ makes a quiet, delicate entry, the faint hint of still dark waters before ‘Transcendence’ hits the riff. First up the sound is very good, the drums captured far better than the debut and the whole sound more rounded. There is an absolutely wrenching melodic refrain that kicks in on the back of the bass, full of melancholy but opening into an almost stormy, epic mythic sound. Confident and strong it’s a fine first moment. ‘Celestial Mirage’ continues this, with a striding sound the recalls the vague area of Winterfylleth or Fellwarden at their more strident but has a sharper move in tempo to it too that digs deeper into lower register. The vocal are excellent, as I expected: Varied enough to complement the emotional demands of the music but full throated and teeth bared and almost in the realm of Neurosis here and there. Quieter moments are woven in with great judgement without losing momentum and it holds me totally for its ten minutes.

They do indeed have a knack of the construction and connection of passages without jarring you out of their world. Often something simple like the piling on of the kick drums and a slight shift in the riff is enough.

‘Shadowed Waters’, a slow interlude allows some keyboards to drift quietly through the darkness as the slow, doomy beginning of ‘Two Score And Ten Souls’ raises its sound like some eerie chorus in a church to no god you would recognise. Doom is definitely the atmosphere here; even as the pace picks up it seems a sound predetermining a dismal and lonely end even as the melody seems to find a little light through the clouds and a fierce resistance seems to emerge.

But that’s what this album does: It paints pictures in my mind.

‘Beyond The Immemorial’ has a melody-hook that just seems to soar through some turbulent clouds while closer ‘Nightmares Of The Eschaton’ finishes us off with a much more earthy, feral attack but again with defiant vocals and a driving rhythm section it sinks in deep and still epic hooks to drag you down as the world collapses. Bloody magnificent.

This is a rich and confident step on from their debut for me; no tampering with their core sound, just an expansion and an improvement. It cements them firmly as one of our more epic sounding black metal bands who still have such sharp teeth. Huge swathes of atmosphere, melancholy, a nod towards doom/death in places but basically top drawer UKBM.

Buy the hell out of it.

(8.5/10 Gizmo)

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