If you’re even a little into the greater metal scene, you know for a fact that there in the grand expanse that the styles of metal encompass and call home there’s a very dark, hollowed out corner of the scene for truly haunting acts that seem hellbent to invoke beings of great darkness and to really peel away at your very spirit. Acts like Howls of Ebb, Esoctrilihum, and Triumvir Foul inhabit such a hellish environment, but it’s the entity of Ævangelist that has reigned over this shadowland with an iron grip like no other act has managed to accomplish thus far and their reign seems far from over with this new album.

There are few times that a cover art can embody the core ideology of a record visually while still leaving plenty to the imagination of the listener simply because the music of the record is likely far too complex for any single illustration to wholly embody without fail. The whole of Ævangelist has long been something that’s been a real challenge and checkpoint for anyone getting into the truly extreme end of that dark chasm music like this calls home as it’s absolutely littered with records like “Matricide in the Temple of Omega”. To put it simply, there’s nothing forgiving about this record in the slightest. No light. No hope. Only the rattle of chains and screams of the ill-fated who weren’t prepared for the black flame that Ævangelist has yet again set loose upon the world with these six tracks of chaos incarnate. Yet, somehow amidst all this, Ævangelist has created an oddly intoxicating experience here. The pure darkness and complexity of “Matricide in the Temple of Omega” is the sort that keeps pulling you in further as the album progresses and we get a further look into the abyss that Ævangelist has effortlessly carved out solely for the purpose of us to lose ourselves in. This is easily the darkest, most detailed, and the most haunting experience that we’ve gotten all year by far as the occult masters have returned yet again to grant us a boon that’s so much more than what we could’ve fathomed originally, and it’s a true joy to find something new in the darkness with each and every listen.

A lot of times, I’ll use the album’s specific style as a center point to help me describe the material in question better but simply labelling “Matricide in the Temple of Omega” as “blackened death metal” would be an immense disservice to this experience as it’s so much more than three words. Few acts can create listens of pure darkness as effectively as this, and yet again Ævangelist has proven themselves to be masters at such a craft.

“Matricide in the Temple of Omega” releases on November 16th via I, Voidhanger Records!

LISTEN to advanced tracks from “Matricide in the Temple of Omega” on Bandcamp here.

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