In a long overdue return, Portugal's The Ominous Circle rise again from the mist with their sophomore album "Cloven Tongues of Fire", a deeper descent into the great, endless chasms. A maelstrom of fire and relentless chaos that defies everything in this age of empty standards and sterile paradigms, the new full-length effort represents their darkest, most intense and uncompromising manifest to date, both a witness to the wickedness of iniquity and a tribute to the arts of the extreme.
Sophisticated yet raw, dynamic and fierce, presenting a different approach to songwriting while continuing the path of 2017's acclaimed "Appalling Ascension", "Cloven Tongues of Fire" delivers 43 minutes of black-infused Death metal with monolithic slabs of doom. A defaced abomination of low-tuned impious riffing, dissonant patterns and wildfire rhythms, from the manic blasting of “Through Tunnels Ablaze” to the gargantuan epic that is “Utterance of the Formless”, forming a tome of Dark Death Metal necromancy.
Its organic production harks back to ancient times and is crowned with Dan Lowndes' mastering magic to forge an opus of filth, blood and venom where new elements merge with old facets to spawn an opus of labyrinthine shapes and blaze-laden cacophony. Unapologetic and confrontational, "Cloven Tongues of Fire" is a testimony of the awe-inspiring splendour of Death.
Black 12" (140g) in a black poly-lined innersleeve, download card, booklet 8 page 20x20mm, full-color on 150g g art paper, gatefold jacket, full-color printed on 350g carton, coated paper, all assembled in a plastic overbag.
Reprint, 500x graphite grey 12" 140g with a silkscreen on B side in a microtene innerbag, printed innersleeve full-color on 220g carton, jacket full-color printed on 350g carton, all assembled in a plastic overbag.
Reprint, 488 sea blue with black galaxy effect vinyl 180g, in a black poly-lined innersleeve. Gatefold, full-color printed on 350g with high-gloss lamination, all assembled in a plastic overbag.
If there's one certainty in these uncertain times, it's that PURITY THROUGH FIRE will continue to raise the banner of nowadays German black metal: proud and pure in its expression, honoring the past whilst not being shackled to it, and evincing a professionalism that doesn't sacrifice true underground spirit. Their latest executioners are AD MORTEM, who'll be familiar to those who caught their PURITY THROUGH FIRE-released split with standard-bearers MAVORIM in that very uncertain year of 2020. While their split-mates are true titans of today's Teutonic black metal scene, AD MORTEM proved to be a poignant counterpart, evincing an undeniable physicality that remained hook-heavy and hummable.