(written by Islander)
With phenomenal cover art by Eliran Kantor paving the way, on May 2nd Vendetta Records will release a split entitled MANDATUM by two striking black metal bands — Excommunicatio (Germany) and Beenkerver (Netherlands). The split includes three new songs by each band, and today we’re premiering a lyric video for one of the three by Excommunicatio.
For Excommunicatio the split follows up their 2023 debut album Kodex Luzifer, which we reviewed here. The review included these thoughts:
To be sure, the album is relentlessly hellish, just as the vocals are relentlessly spine-tingling in their demonic intensity, but the album takes us on a tour — because this vision of hell is not all one place. As rendered in these songs, it is ruled by magisterial haughtiness and cold cruelty, but the lords also exult in their un-ruled excesses and their displays of burning glory, and they war on heaven too. In this infernal pageant we also tour ghettos of suffering and the wandering of lost souls in desolation.
What new hells do the Excommunicatio duo open for us on the split? We envision one of them through “Konfination – Disciples of the Light.”
As you will see in the video, which the band made themselves (and you’ll see their cloaked and hooded selves within it), the song’s lyrical theme is a scathing assault on the christian church. The music is also scathing, but that is only one of its dark facets.
The song doesn’t begin in a fever pitch, but instead is stately in its pace and ominously grand, yet even then the abrasive riffing has a cold and cruel resonance, infiltrated by ringing notes that are dismal but then buoyant (a kind of elegant and haunting intrusion). There is peril and poison in those sensations, as if preparation for vengeance to come, and the words are expelled in harsh howls and fanatical cries.
When the storm comes, it’s breathtaking in its savagery. The drums blast full-throttle and pop the listener’s pulse, the layered guitars channel both gutting carnage and ecstatic delirium, and if anything the fire-fueled vocals are even more possessed.
More changes lie ahead. The power of the music ebbs and flows; the riffing viciously slashes and maniacally swirls; visions of frightening grandeur loom, and convulsions of rage break out. Things slow to a stop and spoken words echo from catacomb walls, and then rocking beats, a vividly throbbing bass line, and ringing riffage, both glorious and feral, will get listeners’ muscles moving from then to the end. Before the song does end, there’s one more stunning change — a mystically beautiful melody joyously soars.
The song thus makes a dramatic impact — it’s harrowing and it’s a head-mover; it’s a scorcher and it becomes sublime; it towers in its ruthless certainty and revels in its wrathfulness.
We’ve not yet spent enough time with the entire split to say more about it yet — but partial first impressions are so impressive that it’s likely we will.
MANDATUM Track List:
1. Excommunicatio: Anathema-the deliberate doom
2. Excommunicatio: Infamia-consign them to the flames
3. Excommunicatio: Konfination-disciples of the light
4. Beenkerver: Drenkeling
5. Beenkerver: Een Kansspel voor het Graf
6. Beenkerver: Faustiaans Lam
This split releases on May 2nd on all streaming services, as well as a limited edition 12” vinyl available in two colors produced by Vendetta Records. Find pre-orders and more info about the bands via the links below.
And for an introduction to Beenkerver if one is needed, you’ll find Daniel Barkasi‘s NCS review of their most recent album, 2024’s De rode weduwe, here.
PRE-ORDER:
https://excommunicatio.bandcamp.com/album/m-a-n-d-a-t-u-m
https://vendettarecords.bigcartel.com/products
EXCOMMUNICATIO:
https://www.instagram.com/excommunicatio_official
BEENKERVER:
https://beenkerver.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Beenkerver
https://www.instagram.com/beenkerver