AN NCS PREMIERE: LVX HAERESIS — “IV”

 

Last month the first advance track from the debut album by Lvx Haeresis hit me like a meteorite, unexpectedly rocketing in from the void and leaving a smoking crater in my skull. Now there’s a second crater to go along with the first one, and you’re about to hear it as well.

Lvx Haeresis is a Swiss black metal band formed in 2013, and their debut album is named Descensŭs Spīrĭtŭs. It was mastered by V. Santura (Triptykon, Dark Fortress, Secrets of the Moon, etc.), its cover art was created by Lemmy Gonthier, and it’s scheduled for a March 11 digipack CD release by Atavism Records.

 

Photo by Swiss photographer Azael

 

Descensŭs Spīrĭtŭs includes seven pieces of music, each of them identified only by Roman numerals. The first advance track, which I wrote about in January, is the one labeled “II“, and the one we’re premiering for you today is “IV“.

“II” is a mighty, mid-paced monster — solemn, savage, and suffused with an aura of rising indigo-shaded majesty. As thoroughly dark and grim as the song’s melody is, the remarkable vocals are a cauldron of boiling vehemence and bestial passion. When the music does explode in storming and hammering crescendos, it becomes almost overpowering.

The newest track, “IV“. is mid-paced throughout, a heavy, stalking beast cloaked in the mantle of death, but one that also moves with a swinging, head-nodding rhythm, the tension in the music building and relenting but never disappearing. As before, the vocal savagery is scorching, and the music’s otherworldly atmosphere is magnified by guitar notes that flicker and echo.

Along with an air of dangerous menace, the music also creates a sense of looming, unearthly eminence, conjuring spectral visions from the void, ending with the boom of timpani and a rising chorus of disembodied voices.

 

Photos by Swiss photographer Azael

 

For more information about the release of Descensŭs Spīrĭtŭs, watch these locations:

Lvx Haeresis on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/Lvx-Hæresis-1638326063059085/

Atavism Records:
http://atavism.records.free.fr/
https://atavism-records.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/AtavismRecords/