Recommended for fans of: Svartidauði, Panzerfaust, Rites of Thy Degringolade
New Zealand’s Verberis have been one of those “if you know, you know” bands ever since the release of their debut album, Vexamen, back in 2016.
It was the addition of Ulcerate drummer Jamie Saint Merat during the writing and recording of their Vorant Gnosis EP in 2018, however, that really helped put the band on the map, and there’s no denying that his impressive abilities behind the kit certainly helped elevate them to a whole new level.
But to focus too much on JSM’s contributions would be to do a huge disservice to the rest of the band (who, while no longer totally anonymous, prefer to go by the initials NH, DA, and MP) as it’s their collective contributions – combining the face-melting fury of the Antipodean Disso-Death scene with the bone-chilling bleakness of Icelandic Black Metal – which gives Verberis their monstrous, multi-headed sound.
And with the group having just surprise-released their new album, The Apophatic Wilderness, last week now seemed like the perfect time to give these particular devils their due.
2016 – VEXAMEN
The band’s debut album is certainly their most “primitive” (for want of a better word) but still ripples with both promise and menace in equal measure, beginning with the short-sharp-shock of opener “Thanatosia” (Serpent Column and Ὁπλίτης fans take note) and the aggressive, anxiety-inducing attack of “The Primordial Rift”.
It’s during this latter track where the blending of Black Metal and Death Metal – but not necessarily “Blackened Death Metal”, which perhaps has different implications – really starts to coalesce into something greater than the sum of its parts, with both the aforementioned “The Primordial Rift” and the viscerally intense title-track balancing complex, contorted riffs and primal, punishing percussive patterns (as well as touches of desolate Doom and devious dissonance) in a way which recalls the likes of Valdur and Rites of Thy Degringolade.
The mid-section of the album then takes this formula and pushes it further, with both “Protogonos” and “Charnel Vibrations” cranking up the OSDM vibes (with the latter incorporating some serious injections of gloomy grime), while the cacophonous churn of “Flagellum De Igne” (eight minutes of meaty riffs, bone-rattling drums, and bloody, blackened melody all building towards a grimly groovesome finale) and the discordant dirge of “The Gaping Hollow of Divinity” put even more emphasis on the darkest, doomiest aspects of the band’s sound.
Approaching its final crescendo, the last stages of Vexamen first manifest themselves in the blast-driven (yet unexpectedly hypnotic) strains of “Fangs of Pazuzu”, followed by the moody piano instrumental “Vereri”, but it’s only during terrifying, ten-minute finale “Voidwards”, however, that you really start to see the shape of the band’s future take form, as the song’s sinister slow-burn – all tangled riffs and coiled bass-lines, repeatedly building to a towering peak before collapsing into chaos, over and over again – certainly contains, in hindsight at least, the early signs and seeds of what they would grow into in the years to come.
2018 – VORANT GNOSIS
The band’s 2018 EP was where a lot of people – myself included – first became aware of the band, and thus holds a very special place in their/our cold, blackened hearts.
Sonically-speaking it soon demonstrates how much the group have already evolved, with the tyrannical, Teitanblood-esque strains of “Vorant” first emphasising the most oppressive and suffocating side of the group’s sound – its steady, unstoppable momentum slowly but surely building upon the foundation laid by songs such as “The Gaping Hollow of Divinity” and “Voidwards” with an even thicker, gnarlier guitar tone and an even more potent percussive backbone – before finally erupting into a lurching, discombobulating frenzy.
With “Gnosis” the group then continue to expand and expound upon their warped musical philosophy by putting the focus – at least for the first couple of minutes – firmly on the more melodic and atmospheric aspects of their identity, thus setting the stage for a whiplash-inducing transition to some of the most lethally-intense dissonance and distortion (with more than a few shades of Ulcerate to be found) of their career thus far.
In the second half of this mammoth track the group then take things a step further, successfully fusing these two sides of their sound into something as hellishly hooky (courtesy of some disconcertingly virulent blackened melodies) as it is horrendously heavy, resulting in an unpredictable, yet wholly irresistible, amalgam of dissonant Black/Death/Doom that continues to mutate before your very eyes/ears.
2022 – ADUMBRATION OF THE VEILED LOGOS
With their new drummer now firmly in place and their sound continuing to evolve in an even darker, heavier direction – reminiscent, to my ears at least, of the likes of Suffering Hour and Svartidauði – the band’s second album ups the ante almost immediately, kicking in hard with the scorching guitars and scalding hail of blastbeats that is “Sepulchre of Shattered Saints”, whose merciless velocity conceals a number of sinister, subtly melodic hooks and atmosphere-enhancing embellishments (especially during its foreboding finale).
Compared to the more brutish, bare-bones approach from their debut, Adumbration… sounds so much more crushing and claustrophobic – take a listen to the absolutely massive “Adamantine Amidst Transcendence”, whose groaning, morbidly-heavy guitars, wild, free-wheeling drums, and dissonant, delirium-inducing anti-melodies seem to fill out every nook and cranny of the available sonic spectrum – but still possesses the same raw, animalistic fury (especially when it comes to the vocals) and grim intensity as its predecessor.
Power like that is nothing without control, of course, and the brooding slow-burn introduction of “Severed Paragon” – whose dismal discordance sits somewhere between Panzerfaust and Ulcerate – demonstrates in no uncertain terms that Verberis are in full control of their increasingly intricate and immersive sound, which shifts back and forth, over the course of just under ten malevolence-heavy minutes, between doom-laden density and howling hostility (aided and abetted by JSM’s dervish-like drum work).
Slowing things down even further, “Ennoia” is all about weighty atmospherics and minimalistic melody, providing a much-needed breather in advance of the album’s titanic, twenty-minute closer, “I am the Father and the Tomb of the Heavens”, whose melding of seething blastbeats and discordant disharmonics, dissonant-driven riffs and proggy percussive patterns, all drenched in an aura of apocalyptic atmosphere and gloomy grandeur, encapsulates everything truly great about Adumbration of the Veiled Logos in one single, stunning statement.
2024 – THE APOPHATIC WILDERNESS
It’s arguable that The Apophatic Wilderness finds Verberis at their most Black Metal, leaning even further towards the discordant, disharmonic (and downright disturbing) sound of artists like Thantifaxath, Sinmara, and (obviously) Deathspell Omega.
And yet, in imitable Verberis fashion, the band refuse to take the predictable path of simply following in the footsteps of their peers and/or predecessors and have instead put even more focus on the doomier, moodier, and more malevolent side of their sound, allowing the album’s nerve-jangling guitars, prominent (yet subtly proggy) bass lines, and complex, creative drums, more room to breathe and brood.
That’s not to say that they’ve forgotten how to destroy their enemies audience by any means, as when the band eventually cut loose about half-way through ominous, atmosphere-heavy opener “The Emptying of God” it’s patently clear that they’re just as vicious, and just as venomous, as ever, it’s simply that these moments of cathartic release are – by and large – reserved for when they have been well and truly earned.
As a result, The Apophatic Wilderness is a much more demanding, much less immediate, album than either of its predecessors, from the prowling menace of the aforementioned “The Emptying of God” to the doomy desolation and whirling dissonance of “Labyrinthine Privation” (wherein the band’s love of abrasive arpeggios and shape-shifting percussive patterns is on full display) to the climactic duology of “Arteries Unto Ruin”.
It’s during this final pair – part 1 combining undulating passages of unsettling tension with increasingly intense layers of progressive dissonance and moodily melodic bass work, after which part 2 pushes the album’s sound out even further towards the extremes, interweaving some of the most twisted, discordant guitar work and devastating drumming on the entire album with some of the most haunting atmospheric embellishments and unashamedly melodic moments (most notably during its climactic crescendo) of the band’s career – where you can truly see (and hear) just how far Verberis have come since their early days.