Sombre Arcane

• Groupe : Silent Path
• Genre : Black Metal
• Album : Mourner Portraits
• Pays : Iran
• Label : Self Produced
• Chroniqueur : Goebbels
• Note : 19.5/20

This first album by Count de Efrit, the Lucifer of Ekove Efrits, is really one a great effort in this Misanthropic world and should be highly praised. The Iranian daemon trade the groundwork for a horrendous combination of depressive black metal and funeral doom with his first masterpiece, Mourner Portraits. Yes, I mean it, we are facing a masterpiece!

Honestly, after Nortt, it is the second time I see the definition of Nihilism : Chaos as well as slight sadness and spiritual contemplation are all expressed at different points in this haunted house. It is frightening, and dreamful…In a good way, of course...in a damned good way actually. In these 9 chapters, Count de Efrit wants to treat the curse by a curse. You said it man ! No one can fuck with Jesus, just Fight fire with fire ! A powerful framework of music in the dissonant guitars, something between Burzum and Ekove Efrits, keeps our march into that nihilistic way. But, the rest of the magisterial effects rides on the strange keyboards noise and the fractured and hysteric effects which introduce each part of this mutilated house. Among condemned rains, apocalyptic storms, glorious marches and damaged weapons, the Iranian guys prove to be a mournful shadow, a truly depressive piece of torture which confirms the paradox between the silence of our life and the screams of our hearts. Riffs are generally composed of very simple scalar elements of Suicidal Black Metal esotericism with a Funeral Doom as background. Theyr are played with recurrent rising rhythms, oddly terminated by Ambient retouches. It is so hard for me, though, to pick out single songs. They all have their moments and their homogeneous targets, which are further enhanced by using sorrowful vocals. Although, as a memory and encouragement to engage our surrealistic spirits in our nowadays problems, Silent Path offers a gage of clean vocal samples. Sounds of loneliness will call us back, and every hopeful smile will turn to black.

For lack of cleaned production, I can't really find problems with this album. In fact, it achieves perfectly from beginning to end what it was supposed to. The music is completely devoid of Nihilism and pure contemplation of our hateful existence. I can feel all of those past times by each breath, nevertheless, I don’t know if this rebirth isn’t a curse in disguise. Oh my God ! I could go on praising this masterpiece but I prefer to stop typing and praying for it again.