AN NCS PREMIERE: ÆVANGELIST — “PRÆTERNIGMA”

Horrific tearing noises accompanied the sundering of space-time, and through the rent in the dimensional membrane we received the latest transmission from the void-faring entity known as Ævangelist. Today we share with you this new hymn, as we deliver the premiere of “Præternigma”.

Although the band’s album, Omen Ex Simulacra  emerged from the Abysscape only last fall, Debemur Morti Productions will soon be releasing a new full-length named Ævangelist III – Writhes in the Murk. It’s shrouded in striking cover art  created by Andrzej Masianis, who also painted the cover for the last Ævangelist album.

From its inception, the music of Ævangelist has been devoted to the creation of mental imagery, emotional response, and physical sensation. The dense atmospheric sounds resist classification, as if a cyclone had scoured the musical landscape and caught up within its chaotic spinning mass the broken shards of death metal, black metal, dark ambient, industrial metal, powerviolence, and black noise (and the new album also includes saxophones and cello). Though guided by the same philosophy, the third Ævangelist hymnal is their most varied and immersive work yet, as the band employ new techniques for exerting their grasp on the imaginations of listeners.

“Præternigma” is the new album’s third track. There is something lost in listening to it without having been exposed to what comes before and what comes after, yet even standing alone it exerts a powerful hold on the senses. The music is dense and enveloping, with writhing, grinding riffs generating a moving mass of ominous sound, with eerie electronic noises and floating synthesizer ambience adding to the atmosphere of otherworldly menace. As the song unfolds, the storm of sound is segmented and altered by changing rhythms as the drumbeats move from rolling thunder, to bursts of jackhammer bludgeoning, to tumbling somersaults, to a booming processional march.

There’s a slow, descending chord progression moving within this bleak cacophony, as if a message of doom is being repeated until there’s no mistaking its import. The vocals also seem to be proclaiming some horrific litany, voiced in an array of terrible utterances, from subterranean gutturals to rising howls to despairing spoken words. You listen to the song and your mind’s eye sees disturbing vistas, but you can’t look away.

Ævangelist consists of Ascaris (vocals, saxophones, cello) and Matron Thorn (guitars, bass, drums, ambience/FX, noise, and vocals on “Harken To the Flesh”). Writhes In the Mark is now available for pre-order (both digipack CD and 12″ vinyl) at this location. The track list is as follows:

1. Hosanna
2. The Only Grave
3. Præternigma
4. Disquiet
5. Ælixir
6. Harken to the Flesh
7. Halo of Lamented Glory
8. Writhes in the Murk

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This is “Præternigma”: