Description
Following the sprawling eschatological delirium of their debut, this Dutch entity returns with a second full-length offering: Katabasis Ultima.
Where the first album gazed toward the end of all things, Katabasis Ultima concerns itself with the descent itself. Forty-eight minutes of intoxicated and improvised Raw Black Metal unravel as a succession of blasphemous Latin invocations, documenting a passage ever downward through profaned mysteries, shattered dogmas and infernal revelation. Not a triumphant journey, but a willing surrender to corruption.
The sound remains unmistakably theirs, yet somehow even less restrained than before. The recording is blown out to the point of dissolution, with cavernous riffs and dissonant figures emerging from a haze of distortion only to be consumed again. Moments of strange melody and almost ceremonial repetition surface throughout the album, briefly illuminating the darkness before sinking back into void. As with the debut, chaos and intent exist side by side, revealing a vision that is both deeply improvised and unmistakably singular.
Every title appears in blasphemous Latin, each chapter another step into the abyss. The result feels less like a collection of songs and more like a ritual text rendered through damaged amplifiers and failing tape machines; equal parts revelation, intoxication and desecration.
The descent is complete. The symbols are broken. The gate stands open.
Undisclosed limitation.
