Well, if the evocation of “the archetypal personification of death as it tethers human consciousness to the realm of earthly suffering” is what you’re looking for, here’s the thing for you. Clearly these Americans have spent a while thinking about it as it’s been 6 years since their previous, self-titled album.

And what they came up with some dirty old black metal. Crusty and contemptuous, “The Three Living and The Three Dead” turns momentarily funereal before the heat is turned back on. Apart from the statutory growliness, the most noticeable thing is the flamboyantly technical guitar line. It’s all repressed and harsh because let’s face it, we can’t have jolliness when there’s death in the air. “Wracked by Sacred Fires” continues the grim and downtrodden atmosphere, itself surrounded by aggressivity and a repetitively withering guitar line. I’m not sure if this is supposed to wear me out, but I found this an exercise in endurance. I don’t like it when bands throw away a good idea in the interest of promoting another one. Predatory Light certainly don’t do this but outspoken as it is musically, this seems to be about hardship without a tinge of lighting any sparks.

Gloom and doom mark the start of “Death and the Twilight Hours”. It cranks up into a nightmarish piece of heaviness before developing into a hissing, echoing, scorn-filled piece of technical blackness. Heavy music, heavy going, evil intent. A quiet but sinister passage intervenes, and leads into a further stage of this 11 minute piece. For a time it bursts out and there’s even an exciting guitar solo before a return to downtrodden harshness and back again. On it sails in all its harshness with ever making any impact. “To Plead Like Angels” has a bit Old Man’s Child about it. The guitar makes dirty shapes and deathly blackness is over it. The melody that is in this track and its predecessors is sucked out of it by the eternally downtrodden atmosphere.

“Death and the Twilight Hours” has persistence. In spite of showing signs of life with its mobile technical rhythms, hardship and drudgery are what come to mind. It all matches up to the promise, but it’s hard going.

(6/10 Andrew Doherty)

https://listen.20buckspin.com/album/death-and-the-twilight-hours