(written by Islander)
Vampires and other undead entities reputed to feed on the essences of living humans have figured in the folk mythologies of many cultures around the world for millennia. Fear of such creatures has led to episodes of mass hysteria, executions, the exhumation and decapitation of corpses, and of course the staking of suspected revenants through the heart.
(Many such incidents and more are documented in Killing the Dead: Vampire Epidemics from Mesopotamia to the New World, an exhaustive scholarly work by John Blair published just last November.)
Vampirism lives on in our imaginations (hopefully, only there), itself a deathless dream that the passage of millennia can’t exorcise. In our tiny corner of modern culture, black metal has kept the nightmares alive more than any other sub-set of metal, and one of the most prolific exponents over the last seven years has been the Ecuadorian band Wampyric Rites.
This band’s newest album, Under the Tragic Fullmoon of the Vampire, is now set for release by Inferna Profundus Records tomorrow — Friday the 13th of February — and on the eve of that dreadful event we have a full stream of the album for your consideration.
More than an hour long, the album presents 10 songs, including a ravaging cover of Behexen’s “Night of the Blasphemy”, and an extensive and haunting piano-centric Outro track. Inferna Profundus describes the music as “a truly matured and eldritch exercise of black metal mutiilation; one slaked in infested tremolo melodies, howling oratory necromancy, dark gothic poetics and the same epic alchemical composition this entity is now infamous for.”
In many respects, the new music is indeed unholy and slaughtering, but as the album’s title itself foretells, it also manifests aspects of tragedy and chilling moonlit elegance. All these qualities are evident in the very first song, “A través de la Obscuridad y la Melancolía”.
There, Wampyric Rites set loose furiously hammering and vividly galloping drums, as well as vocals that maniacally screech, woefully wail, and coldly roar. But it’s the two-tone guitars that seize attention most of all, the rhythm guitar generating a raw, whirring whine and the feverish lead guitar spearing listeners with more shrill and piercing decibels.
Together the guitars create writhing and haughty harmonies of violent and even jubilant madness, but they also channel distressing moods of fear, agony, and despair (especially when the full-throttle drums briefly slow). The wild frenzies of a vibrantly trilling guitar solo near the end are especially captivating.
The fleet-fingered riffing and brightly skirling arpeggios, and their ability to channel changing moods of considerable intensity, remain key features of the other songs (immersive and affecting features). At times, the caustic chords throb in ways that create dark and dismal sensations or vibrate with yearning, but they also continue generating blood-lusting frenzies, and the piercing, mandolin-like trills of the lead guitar never fail to captivate attention as they ecstatically whirl like dervishes, thrillingly quiver, or succumb to bereft agonies.
Other musical textures also surface. Here and there, flute-like tones wail. Here and there, a guitar screams to the high heavens. At the end of “En el Necro Sepulcro de la Eternidad” the music mysteriously and beautifully rings like chimes. Within “Sanguinario Emperador” and “Bajo el Negro Hechizo de la Luna Llena” keyboards seductively glimmer or ripple.
Along with the changing moods and instrumental accents, the songs feature recurring changes in rhythmic patterns that enhance the songs’ dynamism. The drums often thunderously race but also prance like cantering steeds, bounce like punks, and steadily pulse. The bass is a subtle but often nuanced presence, and it helps give this undead music life.
More life thrives in some songs than in others. For example, at times “Cuando Seamos Absorbidos por la Obscuridad” (a mid-album standout track) even sounds joyful and hopeful (but also deranged), the soloing in “Nosferatu Wintermoon” is glorious, and the Outro track is a piece of mesmerizing gothic magnificence.
It must also be said that the deftly performed and multi-layered guitar and keyboard work throughout the songs also displays elegance and grandeur (albeit a kind of bleak grandeur), and in these ways that strengthens the otherworldly nature of the music and assists in conceptualizing the horrors, the romance, and the endlessly doomed nature of the otherworldly creatures that inspired it.
It must also be said that the vocals are always frightening (including the wretched wailing in the album’s title song) and the unhinged reverberations of those strangled screeches are fanatically abusive. But after all, this is music inspired by blood-spraying fiends.
With that we turn you over to all the thrills and chills of Under the Tragic Fullmoon of the Vampire in its entirety:
Under the Tragic Fullmoon of the Vampire features cover art by Gabriel Cerruto Costa. Inferna Profundus Records will release it on LP vinyl (in variant editions), metalbox CD, jewelcase CD, and cassette tape formats, with apparel. Find pre-orders via the links below.
PRE-ORDER:
https://infernaprofundusrecords.bandcamp.com/album/under-the-tragic-fullmoon-of-the-vampire
https://www.ipr666shop.com/