It’s a wonder what difference a mere year can make for any band should they find themselves in the favor of luck. When I had first discovered Hexerei just over a year ago thanks to a certain black metal promoting YouTube channel, I was more than curious to see Hexerei sign to at least a decent label and show us what else they’re made of. Not even thirteen months later, it’s now that we can happily see Hexerei sign to the absolute beast of the underground that is Sentient Ruin Laboratories with a full-length hot out of the oven and utterly dripping with dark occult ooze. In no small way, time has been truly kind to this band with the response to the creation shaping up to be fittingly positive.

Right out of the gate, it’s not hard to see why one might be lured into the confines of Hexerei’s debut should they even simply be interested in some of the more authentically dark halls of what the realms of black metal have to offer those who wander them. What’re just four tracks spread across an extensive 34-minute runtime that invokes the very blackest of skies and vicious demons to pour forth from the cracks therein, it’s the full extent of “Ancient Evil Spirits” with which Hexerei manages to summon a truly powerful performance that doesn’t hold a single thing back as we get much more than just some riffs sprinkled with somewhat potent occultism that manages to for a not much more than a slightly thematic performance. In reality, you can really feel how committed Hexerei is to their craft as it’s from the haunting beginning to the staggering finale that stretches to almost 16 minutes that the very title of “Ancient Evil Spirits” feels immensely literal in what it’s invoking with the very power of the record feeling eldritch in its roots with Hexerei managing to focus and harness that power to stupendous effect. This is the exact kind of bottom-dwelling, voracious, light-devouring black metal that feels downright sinister that many of us are on the lookout for with not nearly enough bands managing to bring it to the surface even half as well as what Hexerei has summoned for this creation, and it’s every fiber of my being that can’t help but feel like what’s brought forward in the menacing magnificence of “Ancient Evil Spirits” is just the very edge of what darkness we can expect to see in the future.

The darkest depths of underground reaches that black metal finds itself in truly doesn’t have any limits when it comes to what kind of ferocity it can summon forth at any given moment with very few bands being able to rise out of that blackness with the dark enlightenment necessary to recreate it for us peons to bask in. There’s no doubt that Hexerei is most certainly one of those few acts to rise through the underground and deliver such occult goodness, and it’s the very entirety of “Ancient Evil Spirits” that makes me feel as though my hopes for Hexerei that were planted in my brain thirteen months ago have been wildly justified and rewarded.

LISTEN to “Ancient Evil Spirits” on Bandcamp here.