Musical black magic and sorcery from Belgium here with the return of Ars Veneficium. You know just what you are getting with them too. No beating around the bush with their form of blasphemy, just punishing and spiteful true black metal the way it was always meant to be. Nothing in the way of post modernism or sullying of the genre here. They started off strongly with EP ‘The Abyss’ in 2014 and debut album ‘The Reign Of The Infernal King’ solidified their position a couple of years later. Playing these two releases back to back along with new album ‘Usurpation Of The Seven’ I noticed one thing and that is an even stronger impact as far as the speed and lethalness of the project is concerned. The one real problem I found with the last album was that its impact was slightly broken up with the inclusion of a couple of samples, one of them particularly long and unwieldy and that was at the expense of the music. No such mistakes here, indeed once you are past intro hymn of chaos the album barely lets up and goes like the proverbial clappers, intent to tear your head off and claim your very soul. Looking at it, I reckon it would be more than fair to say as far as things go the album is at least 95% fucking hostile.

Numerology is at the heart of things but you can enjoy this without looking further into the Gnosticism and mystical relevance of this quite easily if you so wish as the gates are flung open and the ‘Wrath Of Life’ turbulently furrows out the speakers. Gnarly croaks, blackened rasps and some dictatorial clean cries pepper the seething landscape as vocalist S puts on a vicious and harrowing performance. The drums thunder and guitars scythe relentlessly. I have found melodies a little less easier to cling to but they underlie the darkness and seep into the consciousness more over repeated plays. The orthodox nature of the beast rises up and bites through rampant sermons such as ‘Devour The Light.’ The pitch-black tar is forced venomously on the listener through a deluge of strafing musical fire, slowing just a little during this particular dark ode to let in a small glimmer of brightness allowing you to find a short passageway out. The full-blooded cries and yells during ‘In Sin, Bred by Madness’ are a little reminiscent of a vocalist such as Hoest and the blitzkrieg from the musicians could be compared to a devilish Marduk, Watain or Tsjuder at full destructive force. A mid pace is visited for a while on ‘De Luiaard Heerst’ and is rather majestic and malevolent due to some sinister spoken word intonations, really drawing out the atmosphere of having walked in on something forbidden. The fist-pumping vitriolic ‘In the Fires of Eternity’ is a bit of a stand out number and gets the blood flowing fast, this is one that will no doubt be particularly lethal live as it surges into speedy and precise mayhem and even seventh hymn number 7 despite being instrumental is nothing less than lethal.

Over repeated plays, even when caught in the whirlwind of the album as a whole, one knows when they have reached last track ‘The Flame of Endless Yearning.’ It’s probably due to the slightly different take on things musically as a jaunty pagan folk like melody with a definite Taake like groove takes the album out in a bouncy and feral fashion. Solid stuff from Hellgium here make no mistake and if you are new to the band you should definitely check them out.

(7.7/10 Pete Woods)

https://www.facebook.com/arsveneficiumofficial

https://digital.immortalfrostproductions.com/album/usurpation-of-the-seven