By Satan and all his agencies, this is a (great) beast of an album. Running just shy of an hour and hitting you like the last 5-minutes of Ben Wheatley’s Kill List, (what do you mean spoilers, it came out in 2011) it’s an unholy romp through Luciferian rites in thick dark woodlands. The French band have impressed in the past and were conceived by Dæmonicreator and the recently departed Lord Chaos, delivering a pentagram of five albums to date of what they describe as “esoteric, Satanic black metal.” As we tread carefully into their stygian realm, one should be prepared for goats, sacrifices and blood… you have been warned.
Sinister tones and chants are the gateway as chalice is raised and we drink deeply from ‘His Wine Be Death.’ Savagery is then unleashed and hell is baptised in a foul miasma of black fury from thundering drums and tumultuous guitar work. Vocals add to the mass and are gargled forth as dreadful doctrines are recanted. The mix courtesy of George Emanuel is thick and cloying and the band’s backing “abyssal choral” chants come through adding to the irreligious fervour. The Dæmon frontman also of the strange and sinister Haiku Funeral sounds possessed at times as he violently casts spells via his voice and summons devilry and diabolism. Strange pulsing sounds emit from the undergrowth of ‘Key To Luciferian Joy’ and dreadful entities no doubt follow in their wake.
There are distinctive parts here measured by pace and atmospheres. The first few numbers are fast and flung out with vile discourse before the malignancy is slowly tempered with more grandiose and ceremonial passages. ‘Cyclopean Adoration’ casts its eye wide as an example of the latter style providing a sprawling ten-minute descent into shadowy netherworlds of gloom and dread where we are advised that “kissing the hindparts of the beast” is more than acceptable. There’s no denying that this is serious stuff, there’s no humour or silliness about the group’s infernal message and it seems as though there is dedication be it to ritual or blasphemy. I think I mentioned on last album ‘Apocatastase’ that I was reminded of Acherontas and that is certainly the case here too, especially as we reach the latter parts of the album. Before that though we still have the stabbing fury of ‘Vessel of Abysmal Luxury’ a summation as vile and vulgar as any dedicated emissary of filth could wish for.
Should one survive the harrowing and infernal likes of ‘Menstruum Congressus’ and arrive at final gleaming of light and the ‘Chalice of Fornication’ one is not only rewarded with the pleasures of the flesh but also arcane psychedelia. Enmeshed via snaking sitar like sound; mysticism, sorcery and forbidden knowledge is the obsidian reward as we “ascend to the void in absolute transcendence.” What a journey this has been, to quote another somewhat apt film’s tagline “A living nightmare of black magic… and unspeakable evil!” If you are looking for an album that will bewitch and totally consume you this will certainly do the job.
(8.5/10 Pete Woods)
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