(written by Islander)
We’re about to share with you is a beautifully illustrated lyric video for a truly remarkable song, one that invites listeners to enter the valley of the dead and to commune with the frightening and yet seductive spirits who dwell there, to experience their gloom and sorrow, as well as their frantic confusion and their bursts of fiendish exhilaration.
The name of the song is “Sombras luminosas” (Luminous shadows), and it’s from Nekromanthra, the third album by the long-running Peruvian death/doom cult Psicorragia, now set for co-release on June 23rd by Satanath Records (Georgia) and Thrashirts (Peru).
As Satanath describes:
Throughout the album, dense and funereal passages coexist with melancholic atmospheres and eruptions of chaos, without abandoning the rawness or technicality of traditional death metal. The work also incorporates black metal nuances and other lugubrious elements that further radicalize the band’s proposal….
Thematically, the album explores the darkest corners of the human species, immersing itself in landscapes of decay, death, and the deepest horrors of existence. The lyrics move through the decomposition of both the physical and the moral, the inevitability of the end, the presence of abyssal forces, and the contemplation of the inexorable….
As mentioned above, “Sombras luminosas” lyrically takes listeners into the valley of the dead, a place that glows with the luminous shadows of lost souls who mimic their former life, sustaining the illusion that they still exist as material creatures, and blurring the boundaries between reality and magic.
Musically, the song evolves like an elaborate and epic pageant, a constantly changing and powerfully memorable narrative that’s beautifully constructed to spawn visions of that haunting, unreal valley described in the words.
The song’s opening phase brings together a collage of notes, some dismal and degraded, others piercing and apparitional, segmented by outbursts of bludgeoning bass and drums. Gradually, the beats become more vivid and the music more menacing and dangerous, even as one guitar continues to dismally moan.
But these are spirits that mimic the life they lost, and so a lead guitar mysteriously (but also kind of fiendishly) darts and swirls, and as the rhythm section begin to thunder and gallop, trem-picked riffing creates a vivid, near-ecstatic harmony as other strings flash in pulsations and the vocals come forth in monstrous growls and maddened howls.
That phase is exhilarating to hear, but the music shifts again. A heart-breaking melody slowly flows; bright guitars ring like ethereal chimes; a scratchy but also glittering guitar solo seizes attention (as does a very craggy bass); and the music slows and becomes more ominous and be-gloomed, moaning and skittering.
The more fleet-fingered riffing and galloping grooves return, along with rabid barking howls and those flashing bursts of shrill sound. Near the end the drums boom, and the passages of heartache return — but the music also chimes again and becomes strangely seductive.
To repeat, it truly is an epic song, and a formidable display of songwriting mastery. It sets fire to a listener’s imagination, and it’s very easy to play it over and over again.
PSICORRAGIA is:
Mario Romanet – vocals, bass
Marco Borra – guitars
Alick González – guitars
Antonio Duncan – keyboards
Teo Suchero – drums
All compositions were conceived and produced by the band itself. The album was recorded during 2024, while mixing and mastering were completed between January and July 2025. The album artwork is a work by American artist Thomas G. Anderson, “internationally recognized for his Dark Art aesthetic, where cinematic photography and psychological horror converge”.
The labels will release Nekromanthra on a jewel-box CD edition with a 12-page booklet (limited to 500 copies), and digitally. They recommend it for fans of the early works of My Dying Bride, Anathema, Katatonia, Paradise Lost, and Moonspell, as well as bands such as Varathron, Rotting Christ, Acheron, Edge of Sanity, Mystifier, Abysmal Grief, and Unholy.
Find more info via the links below, and also give a listen to the previously released song “Absimales“.
PRE-ORDER:
https://satanath.bandcamp.com/album/sat422-psicorragia-nekromanthra-2026
https://www.thrashirts.pe/
PSICORRAGIA:
https://psicorragia.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/psicorragia
https://www.instagram.com/psicorragia_official