By now, the name MAVORIM should be more than familiar to those who follow the crimes of PURITY THROUGH FIRE. Since the band's formation in 2014, mainman Baptist has restlessly and relentlessly pursued his stark, austere style of black metal, resulting in three full-lengths and seven other shorter-length works. Collectively, MAVORIM have quickly come to define the new breed of German black metal that hearkens back to the old guard: Teutonic to the bone, harsh and harrowing yet heralding triumph.
And so the battle wages on with MAVORIM's fourth album, Ab Amitia Pulsae. Immediately and dramatically, this is classic MAVORIM - charging hard onto the battlefield, bloody swords raised, rough-yet-rousing melodicism to the fore, with Baptist's gruff, exhortative throat leading the charge - but as Ab Amitia Pulsae plays on, new vistas of their signature sound are revealed. While still qualitatively a black metal record, MAVORIM's fourth album displays deft layering of sounds, particularly Baptist's subtle-yet-concerted integration of keyboards and other synth sounds, altogether adding an exceptionally dynamic contour to otherwise-straightforward aggression. Further, his guitar leads display a much wider swath of feeling as well as texture, each song seemingly featuring something quite new in the greater MAVORIM dialect, while drumming co-conspirator Valfor occasionally add his choral voices to poignant effect. And it's gripping and urgent all the way through to the 53-minute album's end...again and again and again.
At times tragic, at times folkloric, melancholy giving way to bloodlust, Ab Amitia Pulsae proves once again that MAVORIM are uniquely adept at fully coloring within the lines of black metal with the boldest and bravest hues.
No other words are necessary: ancient-days Teutonic black metal continues to be on the rise, and EISENKULT are leading the charge with Vulgäre, deutsche Hassmusik!
Alas, 2024 has proven to be predictably bountiful for ORDER OF NOSFERAT, as The Absence of Grace arrived as the snows began to melt - and now, as those snows soon take hold, so does yet another full-length.
Limited edition of Behemoth's Antichristian Phenomenon presented on red/blue splatter-effect vinyl, with all seven of its tracks compiled together for the first time on the format.
Reprint, 400x gold in milky clear swirl 12" (140g) in a microtene innerbag, printed innersleeve, full-color on 220g; jacket, full-color printed on 350g, all assembled in a plastic overbag.
4 new hymns, recorded in the same session like Sargeist's latest full length masterpiece, Unbound, showing nothing but Satanic Black Devotion. Featuring a silkscreen print on side B.
Reprint, 598x bloodred with black marble effect 12" (180g) in a microtene innerbag, printed innersleeve on 220g, download card, full-color jacket, black flooded inside on 350g, all assembled in a PVC overbag.
Reprint 2025, 700x transparent green in highlighter yellow vinyl (140g), innersleeve full-color on 220g, jacket full-color on 350g, all assembled in a PVC overbag.