Review Summary: Consumed by the ever looming dark.
There has been quite an immense time gap between
Agnus Dei and
Lux Tenebris. 6 years is a lot for a band, as there is so much potential evolution for every person involved as well as the possibility for new minds to enter the fray entirely, meaning the door for change creaks opens ever more slightly every year. What's interesting, then, is how
Lux Tenebris feels like a logical extension of Agnus Dei while also feeling like a step outside it's box. Before we were greeted with an increased presence of The Secret's doom-laden black metal influence, albeit still amongst chaotic crust punk riffs and scathing blast beats. Of course, slow-tempo funerary dirges were still present as they were as well on
Solve Et Coagula
(Eve of the Last Day being an awesome example), but they weren't the mainstay of their sound. Here however, it is much more prominent, making for a more suffocating and dense album than the more scathing records of the past.
"The Sorrowful Void" , for example, kicks off in a manner that is thunderous, like a feral demon goring all in sight to bits of flesh and blood. When the second half approaches, the riffs slow to a trawl, and the putrid howls of before have given way to an almost mesmerizing sound of emptiness. "Cupio Dissolvi " follows a similar approach, starting off as a cacophony of apocalypse-inducing mass genocide to the harrowing aftermath that ensues. Uncompromising blast beats give way to mid-tempo pulses as the lightning-in-a-bottle guitar work turns into sludgy, haunting tremolo riffs. All of this results in a sound that shows the darkest underbelly of The Secret very well, even if a small amount of the bite of past records is somewhat missed. Alongside this it is also hard not to feel like there is more to be had-something more droning and trudging like this does feel slightly incomplete as a 20 minute ep, but alas that is a minute criticism. For as brief as the experience may be, it is still immersive, dark, and ugly, and makes me feel like I've been stomped on excessively by the mighty soles of the devil himself.
