“Filth and fatalism” is what’s promised from this Portuguese purveyor of black metal. This is underground black metal in fact from an eerie and mystical underworld. Grainy and shadowy moaning sounds seem to be passing through a wind tunnel. “To Become” is dismal and drawn out but this strange six track album takes us on a journey of imagination and increasing intensity. Its fuzziness suggests that it’s been recorded in someone’s kitchen but “To Become” carries the flag of what follows and introduces a spiritual element into the chaos. “Into Morbid Trance” sums itself up nicely. Razor-like guitar work peers through more fog and wind. I could not get Hawkwind’s “Space Ritual” out of my head as I listened to the kaleidoscopic psychedelia, except that this is of a solitary black metal orientation. It’s like an eerie, urgent and ghoulish adventure. “The Truth” continues in an intense and energetic vein. The constant whistling is the only semblance of human intervention in this incessant black metal blast, only slowing down briefly in the next track “Ceremonial Energy”. But this is other worldly, and it’s all like a musical representation of being battered into oblivion. Here and there our musical guide takes us into hypnotic territory but the drone continues before merging and plunging into further chaos at the end of “A Prayer from Beyond”. All that is left is the power and majesty of “From the Long Forgotten Past”. An uplifting tone shines through the eerie whistling and rumbling thunder. Now Black Cilice is telling a story without words.
This is not an album you can ignore. The atmosphere of “Mysteries” is constantly intense and without compromise as Black Cilice breaks through the seemingly uncontrollable wind and fire with this black metal work.
(7.5 /10 Andrew Doherty)
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