Lumen Ad Mortem are hailing from Adelaide, Australia, far away scene for us Europeans from Central Europe and I am so glad when I discover hidden gem and beauty from that scene and believe me, there are superb underground bands and projects there. This is relatively new band in the scene, this being their debut opus, but members of the band are veterans of the scene playing of having played in Destroyer 666, King Parrot, Deluge, to name only a few. This opus offers six epic songs of mainly slowed down atmospheric and melodic black metal with some doom influences like for example in ‘Infinite Resonance’, but do not be worried there are also blast beats like in ‘Within the Smoke’ whose aggression turns back again into slower epic songwriting of ‘Ethereal’, with that beautiful epic melodic blast beat ending. Vocals are black metal screams, sometimes, going into death metal grunts and gothic chant reminding me of late great Peter Steele of Type O Negative at times. Keys and orchestrations are grandiose and fit perfectly sometimes at front sometimes backing guitar melodies, aggression and melancholy. This album yet again reminds me why I love black metal so much as a music to express your feelings and innermost battle with your demons. My personal favorites: ‘Ethereal’, ‘Thought and Memory’, ‘Narrow Paths and Stoney Ground’.

8/10

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