AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): PRISON OF MIRRORS — “DE SEPULCHRIS OCCULTIS ET IGNE PROFANATIONIS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres  No Responses »
Feb 192026
 

(written by Islander)

De Sepulchris Occultis et Igne Profanationis (Of Hidden Tombs and the Fire of Profanation) is the second album (or EP if you prefer, since it’s on the borderline) from the Italian band Prison of Mirrors. It consists of two very long songs — “Chants Beneath the Shunned Shrines” and “The Devouring Fire of Demonic Doctrine“. It will be released by ATMF on February 24th. And you can listen to it today through our full streaming premiere.

While making references to “the desolate lines traced by the darkest Blut Aus Nord and Akhlys,” ATMF describes the record as “a work that is bleak, profound, suffocating, and all-encompassing: a sonic ritual that grants no respite and, like a slow-acting poison, will wound its listeners, consuming both mind and senses” — “a journey into the core of an abyss with no bottom, where every step drags you deeper, until nothing remains of former memories — only the faint echo of a consciousness undone.”

After that, you’ll be happy to know that the record is survivable, but the mental wounds it leaves won’t heal quickly. The experience is hallucinatory and labyrinthine, and around all of the many strangely curling corners something very unsettling and intense awaits, though the intensity manifests in different ways, leaving different scars. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: PRISON OF MIRRORS, ERZ, MOTLJUS, LEBENSSUCHT

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Dec 142025
 

(written by Islander)

When you live with another person during “cold and flu season” there’s always the risk that one of you will get sick and then sicken the other a few days later. However, my wife and I gradually began getting sick at the same time last week and yesterday we both simultaneously had full-blown colds.

We’ve tried to figure out who we were both around outside the house when we got infected earlier this week (we’d hate to murder the wrong person). It was probably when we went to our local sports bar for drinks and dinner, but we know lots of regulars there plus the waitstaff, and we don’t remember anyone sounding sick so it’s tough to pin down the culprit. I suppose we could resort to the maxim attributed to Arnaud Amaury during the Battle of Béziers in 1209, but we’re both atheists so the faith-based solution doesn’t seem right. Oh well, guilty people often escape retribution. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 1): PRISON OF MIRRORS, YALDABAOTH, DEPARTURE CHANDELIER, REVENGE

 SHADES OF BLACK  3 Responses »
Mar 222020
 

 

Maybe it’s because I’ve become a virus shut-in, but I’m finding even more than the usual quantity of new black metal that is appealing, and even a greater desire to spread it around. I’ve consumed a lot of time over the last 24 hours with those two Overflowing Streams round-ups (here and here), and want to at least make a start on today’s SHADES OF BLACK before I have to do something else (and surely there’s something else I have to do besides blog, though I can’t think what it is). So, I’ve divided it into two Parts. Depending on whether I think of something else I should be doing, it may arrive later today or be deferred until Monday.

PRISON OF MIRRORS

I first encountered this Italian band in 2017, following he release of their second EP, Unstinted, Delirious, Convulsive Oaths, whose sound I described as the feeling of being pursued by wolves in the dead of night: “Across all the changes in tempo, the atmosphere is pitch-black and ice-cold, and traces of dissonance in the hopeless melodies heighten the sense of frightening peril at your heels and sinister, supernatural forces at work on your mind. And the vocals are as ugly as a sin you’ll never purge”. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK (PART 2): ENSLAVED, BELTEZ, GNIPAHÅLAN, KATAVASIA, NARBELETH, UTTERTOMB, NIGHTGRAVE, PRISON OF MIRRORS, KULL

 SHADES OF BLACK  8 Responses »
Jul 042017
 

 

This is the delayed completion of a collection of metal from blackened realms that I began on Sunday. As usual, I’ve added a few items to it that came to my attention during that delay.

I’m impaired in my ability to write as much as I would like about the music because of a headache that has battered me today, most likely the result of a battering I gave myself two nights ago when I bounced my head against concrete and put an inches-long gash in my scalp. The less said about the causes, the better. Oddly, when I saw a doctor yesterday to get the wound tended to, I had no headache or other obvious signs of a concussion. But I guess headaches can come on later, and get worse, as mine has.

Anyway, I would like to express my feelings about the music more fully, but I’ve decided not to delay the completion of this post any more.

ENSLAVED

To begin, I have a news item. This is a statement that appeared today on the Facebook page of Enslaved, which I’ll provide without comment, other than the echo of the squeeeeee sound I made when first reading it:

*** Update from the studio: Mix and mastering of our 14th studio album is now finished! ***

It is accomplished! We have finished the recording process of our 14th full-length and in the renowned Fascination Street Studios, Jens Bogren polished this new raw diamond with his mixing and mastering skills. Continue reading »