As I explained at our site about 10 days ago when I first encountered excerpts from the album that’s the source of the following premiere, “nigredo” (or “blackness”) was an alchemical practice that referred to the process of putrefaction or decomposition, a method of cleansing alchemical ingredients by cooking them to a uniform black matter. Because that word encompassed the process of death, putrefaction, or blackening, it also came to have symbolic or metaphorical usages in psychology and in certain spiritual studies as a necessary step in a new beginning.
Nigredo is also the name chosen by an Athenian black metal duo — vocalist, guitarist, and bassist A. (Ravencult) and drummer Maelstrom (Dephosphorus, Embrace of Thorns, ex-Ravencult) — whose debut album Flesh Torn – Spirit Pierced will be released on April 15 by Transcending Obscurity Records. As the band themselves explain: Continue reading »