AN NCS PREMIERE: VILES VITAE — “THE VORTEX OF DISHARMONY”

Viles Vitae are a new Portuguese black metal band, but one whose members are reputedly experienced and known within the Portuguese extreme metal underground. They’ve recorded a debut EP entitled IV, which is founded upon four elemental principles used in ritual magic and consist of four songs. In advance of the EP’s release next month by Caverna Abismal Records, we bring you the first streaming of one of the EP’s four incantations, a song called “The Vortex of Disharmony“.

To listen to the song is indeed like being pulled into a disconcerting vortex. It’s unrelentingly intense and disturbing, even though the fury of its arcane energies waxes and wanes like the blaze of the moon, and it exerts a tight grip on the listener’s attention from start to finish.

From complete silence in the opening seconds, a howling wind, ominous melodic tones, and the building rumble of militaristic drums build in volume, leading to the appearance of a sinister swarming guitar and ultimately a black storm of thundering percussion, white-hot shrieking, and a seething melodic riff that rises and falls like the coursing of poison through the veins.

When the music’s intensity ebbs, the atmosphere becomes grim and dismal, the vocals transforming into wrenching cries and the mood moving from venomous and hateful to feverishly agonized, even as the double-bass thunder returns. When the power subsides again and the rushing wind returns, with a deep, haunting voice proclaiming the final words, you may have to shake yourself to remember where you were before this vortex pulled you into its otherworldly grasp. If you’re like me, it will leave you eager to experience what the remaining three tracks will do to your mind.

Caverna Abismal Records will release IV on February 13. It features cover art by Fábio Infante. For information about ordering, watch these spaces:

Viles Vitae:
https://facebook.com/vilesvitaeband

Caverna Abismal Records:
http://www.cavernaabismal.com
https://www.facebook.com/CavernaAbismalRec/
https://cavernaabismal.bandcamp.com