American Black Metal legends BLACK FUNERAL are back with their tenth album. By now they need no introduction, this will be some untamed and dark material. Set for release via Iron Bonehead Productions on July 3rd.
Samples of wind set the mystical journey off in classic Black Metal fashion. An eerie, effective and very traditional start to the record. Estranged howls and unearthly drum beats further the soundscapes into far more odd territories, building with rampant energy. Ice cold riffs and blastbeats fire into a raw cacophony of macabre and melancholic atmospheric excellence. The pristine and gorgeous guitars ripping in reverb, immediately this is clear to be a gorgeously dark record as the raspy vocals soon drape the instrumentals in howls from beyond the grave.
Untamed and ferocious, the driven and raw cascade of depraved Black Metal continues with a total disregard for modernity, playing a traditional and profoundly emotive blend of brilliant music with haunting organs adding a real sense of death to the sound. The use of keys can often leave a record sounding too pretty or polished but this vanquishes all in its path with the keys enhancing the dark atmosphere. Trembling guitars and cymbal driven drums back up a slew of viscerally emotional vocals to make for a tremendously cold ambience.
Black Funeral of course is a legendary band in the American Black Metal scene, this tome of excellence gives plentiful reasons why with its gorgeously written yet stripped back slabs of blackened fury. Though ambient and packed with chilling passages, the majority of the album is fierce and rampages forth with nothing held back. With limitless black energy and depravity permeating the air, there is something ritualistic, occult and truly morbid at the heart of this record that is unfathomably mystical. Each track is tied together with ambience and sampling or just barrels onwards, however they do it, the momentum is never lost nor is any atmospheric prowess concocted.
This album being the tenth from the band is impressively potent, bold and primal. Having released so much material, it is clear Black Funeral have not lost touch nor stagnated as they march ever onwards with ferocity and maturity, displaying the grandiose nature of Black Metal’s potential while never becoming pretentious or weakened. This album is testament to America having a fantastic Black Metal scene that has lasted past its early days and carved a mark in the shaping of the genre. Tribal, haunting and utterly marvellous, do not miss out on the return of these titan of darkness. -9/10
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