Spirituality is a staple of black metal, more than in any other genre of extreme metal. Although some death metal bands seem to have made a religion out of gore, and there’s no shortage of pentagrams and blood sacrifices in the classics of doom, not to mention the worship of Lovecraft just about everywhere, it is in the realms of the pitch black where supernatural belief dominates.

The exaltation of Nature is its own form of worship among many black metal bands, but there is only one figure at the very top of the pantheon. In different guises and explored through a multitude of different esoteric manifests and practices, it is Lucifer (though his names are legion) who provides the principal inspiration, or at least that is what many bands proclaim, though one suspects it is faux faith in many instances.

Serpens Lvx brandish Satanism lavishly on their debut album, extensively entitled HENDECAGRAMICON: Adversarial Ethos Exoterically Unlocking Shrines Of Dissolution, though their thematic subject matter extends to mythic demonic figures of greater variety: The song titles, for example, include references to Tiamat, Typhon, Quetzalcoatl, and Aztec vampyrism. It is a variant metaphysics — the album also includes a song called “Anticosmic Eroticism (Sexual Black Light Magick)” — but the through-lines are apparent.

The important question, of course, is how this part-Mexican, part-Russian duo have elucidated their themes in sound. We have examples for you, including a song we’re premiering today: “I Am The Adversary (Impii Irreligiosi Carnivoribus Immortalibus)“. Continue reading »