Out of the crypt once more they crawl…
This mystical wonder shall be made flesh by The Ajna Offensive in USA and Invictus Productions in Europe on 30 April 2016 and has thus far been succumbed to by the lowly servant commonly dismissed as Jason Guest
Out of what crypt Sweden’s Head of the Demon crawled, I cannot tell, but be it black, doom or the manifestation of terror itself, Sathanas Transmigestos is an eerily beautiful follow up to the band’s 2012 eponymous debut (reviewed here). Just as the debut was spellbinding in its subtly charged atmospherics, captivating rhythms and importunate riffing, so it is here. Its contours and resonances not altogether the work of nature, they are of something beyond, something resplendent in the dark majesties secreted in the underworld.
While the steady tempos urge the album onward, the riffs clamber their way in, out and through each other weaving web after sinister web, their density deepening, their mystical magnificence unfurling and their ominous landscapes expanding as the reverberating vocals intone their menacing and mighty message. Like its predecessor, album number two revels in ritualistic dark devotion and so its very present yet evasive esoteric heart pervades its every fibre.
Melodic and melancholic, fearsome and phantasmagorical, and slowly seductive in its delicate insistence, with the production giving it the same cavernous and crumbling dimensions as the band’s debut, the album is as opulent as it is boundless and as enthralling as it is enslaving in its magnitude. Such calm pandemonium serves only to have us doubt our shaking sanity. A devilishly textured delight, even Lovecraft would shit himself at this.
9 out of 10
Track list:
- Nox, Est, Lux
- Armilus Rides… Again!
- Sathanas Trismegistos
- Zurvan’s Ordeal
- Maleficium
- L.L.
