Well I think we can all agree on how perfect and effortless the album title is. Also how it already starts to let some atmosphere seep through, but the flood gates of atmosphere are opened when you hear the first track. Damned Souls is a whole ocean of atmosphere that totally transports me to a graveyard on a freezing night as the deal souls call to me while they are twisted up in a never ending turmoil. Yet it also makes me feel as though I’ve been condemned to walk among a never-ending forest in an eternal night full of trapped spirts trying to be set free from their condemning in the after life to haunt the wood and consume the soul of all who enters.
Although the one it makes me feel the most is that it is a dark, cold, stormy & windy night, I’m stood on the edge on a cliff above the perilous sea as the sinned spirts taunt me to do what must be done on this night as they call me to join them. Old Ghost And Primeval Demons is another haunting track that also opens a portal for transportation to what I feel is a burning down church; one where you see the ghosts and demons last moments before their sentencing as ghosts and demons in the flames as a choir like symphony plays in the background. Not forgetting Fallen Angels which made me feel scared and vulnerable as if I was just a kid again seeing a loved one taken down in their prime and leaving their material body as their spirt retreats to the heavenly realm leaving me to be the one to avenge them.
I must move on to the absolute heaven that is every single track on the album including the bonus track Ritos De Iniciação (Initiation Rights), which is an amazing track that I have the incredible pleasure of hearing. With DECAYED, I really love that over the thirty years of this band forming as the black metal genre was birthed, it has been a true honour to bless my ears with. Is it the phenomenal riffs? Is it the lyrics and their powerful vocals? It is the way it makes the listener feel? I can tell you it is all of the above and so much more that only when you hear it you can understand.
There are a few I feel have made quite an impression on my heart such as Perpetual Slumber, Nocturnal Creatures, Cold And Dark and Manitou & Condemned To Hell as they are the ones I fell instantly for when listening to the promo. I feel these lyrics are a very relatable and comforting in a way of saying your not alone but also the instrumental accompaniment is just phenomenal in all tracks. Not just these ones, although in these tracks its so perfectly composed around the lyrics as if the instruments are themselves another set of lyrics. Another little detail in the majority of the songs are a little quirk at the beginning and some at the ending is really setting the feeling for the tracks and how perfectly they have been picked out for each song. The heavenly singing in Death Choir and the bell ringing in the Spell Of The Gorgons and the drum roll at the beginning Grim Prophecies it all makes sense.
For this trio that have seen the first and second wave of black metal and also managed to stitch the two together so seamlessly I have to give them a 9/10.
Rating: 9/10
Words: Zoe Stone
Old Ghosts And Primeval Demons is out now.
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