In April the Greek band Heretic Cult Redeemer will see the release of their third album, Flagellum Universalis, via the label III Damnation. Now featuring a lineup consisting of vocalist/bassist Funus, guitarist/bassist Tempest, guitarist N3, and drummer C. Docre, the band have created a nearly hour-long work that represents a spiritual and philosophical journey, one that explores “the primeval human urge of opposition to law and structure”, in which the band have used themselves “as the means, harbingers, and vessels of Luciferian and Promethean teachings, as expressed through the frenzy, of the touch of Echidna.”

The music is unconventional and often uncomfortable. It operates on multiple planes of experience, as elaborate and strange as it is visceral in its effects. It maintains linkages to second-wave black metal, but inventively spirals off into other directions and dimensions that become head-spinning… and ruinous. It won’t go too far to say that this is avant-garde black metal of a high order, even if that’s a term the band themselves might not use

It’s not music that’s easy to sum up. We’ve struggled to conceive of words sufficient to even a single song, but that song — “Grave Sophia – Breath of Nightside” — is so startling that it compels us to try. Continue reading »