Buckle up people, time to wear our blackest cloaks and begin our travel towards the Balkans! The album we have in our hands in fact comes from North Macedonia, forged by the mysterious Psevdanor, solo black metal project of the Chaos Priestess. Four songs, the first one acting mostly like a long intro, with sharp guitars that immediately set the mood and ritualistic chants that establish the connection with the Balkan folk tradition.
With the second track, "Half the Sky, All of Hell" we light the fuse and we enjoy the explosion of old-school black metal, with fast distorted riffs that stab the listener's brain and thunderous blast-beats leading the charge. The melodic aspect is not neglected, as we can appreciate some tasty guitar phrases that brings the vibes towards the lands of speed metal and black'n'roll. Upon the wall of sound produced by the instruments, the abrasive vocals are thrown in your faces with all the rage and fury that has surely been boiling in the Priestess' blood for a while.
The third track "Unbound" maintains similar elements, with some epic licks that have a faint reminiscence of Iron Maiden, but declined with the violent attitude that permeates this release.
The title track is placed at the end. Here the usual lightning-quick black metal riffs are seasoned with some brief nods towards doom. Around the 3 minute mark we have a short but fascinating section where the acoustic intruments take on a lead role, and we are transported for a second in the middle of some occult ritual somewhere within the Macedonian fogs. The song closes with a climax where the electric instruments and the folk melodies blend together, adding colour and texture to the darkness of this album.
The lyrics make use of very dark imagery, and in some points it seem that the dreadful figures evoked serve as metaphores for the social messages that the artist explicitely stands for, namely anti-fascism and anti-capitalism (which is always good), but maybe I'm reading too much into it and I'm missing the real meanings? Anyway, the lyrics are cool and they sound amazing when being roared and screamed in our ears.
I'm very curious to see more music from this project. Go check it out!