Pyreficativm

PATH OF THE WORLD

LIVING TEMPLE MIND-BENDING BLACK METAL SPIRITUALISM FROM CHILE From its Hindi script title (roughly translated as ‘Path Of The World’) to its opening three minutes of twinkling, psychedelic ambience, Chilean cultists Pyreficativm’s debut makes no attempt to conform to even standard notions of avant-garde BM, let alone more orthodox strains. When heaviness does arrive, it’s in the form of a slow-burning wave of dissonant melancholy, chest-deep in eerie reverb and underpinned by unnerving, cavernous drones. Meanwhile, bursts of speed are tempered by ethereal female voices and a haze of grim anxiety. Clearly, this is not familiar territory and we haven’t reached the end of the first track. Fans of Negura Bunget will be familiar with this gleeful dismantling of expected norms and an otherworldly, quasi-spiritual aesthetic that strives to deliver more than mere riffs and screams. Across 75 bewildering minutes, the flame of the old school is a reassuring, flickering presence, but at its heart this is an audacious journey through dark worlds yet unexplored.

FOR FANS OF: NEGURA BUNGET, SHAMMASCH, MORBUS CHRON

DOM LAWSON