Tenebrific is a new band from Australia, a studio project created by Adam Martin of Golgothan Remains and Sarcophagum, in collaboration with Cris Bassan from Decrepid. Their debut release (in which they’re aided by some special guests) is an EP fittingly named Labyrinth of Anguish, which is set for release on April 8th.
The band have described the EP (quite accurately) as a release that “offers a glimpse into the abyss of existential despair, inviting listeners to confront their own inner demons and navigate the labyrinth of anguish.” “Throughout 22 minutes,” they say, “we summon monstrous and hallucinatory blackened death deformations that echo the howls of tortured souls and the whispers of malevolent entities.”
Over the course of three substantial tracks, the EP progresses as a single cohesive and carefully planned journey, one that really must be heard straight through to get the full effect — and fortunately, that’s what you’ll be able to do further down in this article as we premiere the full stream.
Part of what makes the EP so interesting, and a big reason why it really is best heard in a single session, straight through, is the direction of the progression through the songs. It really does plumb horrid depths of excruciating suffering, soaked in doom, but it does also bring forward the idea of struggle against darkness, and by the end it sets hearts on fire. It’s such an impressive achievement that we hope more Tenebrific releases will follow it.
Because there are “only” three songs here (“only” in quotation marks because they’re substantial in length and multi-faceted in their experiences), let’s take them one at a time.
“Harmony ov Suffering” opens the EP, and it opens itself with a slow swell of haunting but dangerous ambient tones, like the gradual parting of a veil between us and a hostile supernatural realm. Ghastly voices wail and scream, searing tones slither, and finally, drums detonate, chords begin to scrape and seethe, and macabre voices roar and screech from catacomb depths.
The rhythm lumbers in the pace of a death march while the music abrasively boils, intercepted by the slash of guitars like disemboweling blades. Pain begins to flourish as the guitars rise, but the cold oppressiveness of the music is unrelenting.
The longest of the three, “Tormenting Shadows“, seamlessly comes next, the last song’s ambient outro flowing directly into it. With listeners already drowning in agony due to the first song, Tenebrific initially throw us no life preservers here, instead letting us continue drifting downward into black depths.
As in the first song, the volume slowly swells and becomes both more brilliant in tone and more disturbing — moaning as well as glittering. When the intensity increases this time, the bass rumbles like a subterranean upheaval, the drums snap like whips, and feverish tremolo’d guitars rise and fall in a combination of torment and despair.
But this time the struggle begins in earnest. The drums burst open in blast-beat fusillades and tumble like avalanche boulders, the guitars and bass cruelly hammer and manically skitter, a voice screams in pain as another roars again in the dictatorial tones of a monstrous executioner. After a jolting bridge, an extended guitar solo writhes into the upper reaches of sound, wailing and screaming like a tortured apparition. It leads the music into a towering manifestation of hideous grandeur.
The final offering is “The Final Offering“. Again, Tenebrific provide a relatively gentle segue from the previous song, but this time it takes the form of a somber acoustic guitar — soon swallowed by abrading guitars which begin vibrating like a cauldron of heated poison as the bass rapidly throbs and the drums leap into a gallop.
The vocals again amplify the music’s charging and scathing intensity. The rapid riffing and battering percussion conjure visions of a nest of vipers in a feeding frenzy, and the music only becomes more delirious when the soloing spectacularly spins up.
It’s an undeniably vicious experience, yet it’s exultant, even jubilant. The music soars in splendor, reaching blazing, exhilarating heights you might never dream of after you listen to the EP’s soul-suffocating opener.
None other than Greg Chandler mixed and mastered the EP at Priory Recording Studios, and Ivan A (@serpentchron) gets credit for the cover art. The EP is available for pre-order now.
PRE-ORDER:
https://tenebrific.bandcamp.com/album/labyrinth-of-anguish