Band:	Nigredo
Album:	Flesh Torn - Spirit Pierced
Style:	Black metal
Release date:	April 15, 2018
A review by:	nikarg

01. Ten Repellent Antiforces
02. Necrolatry
03. Choronzon Possession
04. Mental Glimpses At Cosmic Horrors
05. Saturnian Death Cult
06. Sons Of Worthlessness
07. Towards The Monolith
08. Raging Tides Of Time

Let me introduce you to Nigredo, another putrid fruit coming from the Greek extreme metal tree. With one EP released three years ago, Flesh Torn - Spirit Pierced is the band's debut or, in other words, the black metal pandemonium you so desperately needed.

It's not so rare that only two people can create a haunting and esoteric atmosphere and at the same time pound their listener with barbaric ferocity and chaotic brilliance; Darkthrone have been doing it for years, as well as Inquisition and, more recently, Mgła, Bölzer and Human Serpent, just to name a few of those that seem to have influenced Nigredo's sound. So, in a way it shouldn't come as a surprise how A. of Ravencult fame and Maelstrom, known from Dephosphorus, Embrace Of Thorns and Thou Art Lord, among others, have produced one of the most vicious and occult revelations you are going to experience this year.

"Nigredo" is the first stage of the alchemical process, also referred to as "blackening", where all alchemical ingredients are cleansed and cooked extensively to a uniform black matter and it is an essential step to be taken in order to turn dross into gold. Nigredo's ingredients are on one hand the primitive, second-wave black metal and, on the other hand, the more avant-garde and dissonant aspect of this genre. These two are fused with thrash and death metal features that blend into a cataclysmic and ominous black mass.

In order to achieve this result, A.'s visceral vocals range from inhuman screams to howls into the void, filling the listener's soul with fear and anguish. In the same vein, his riffs are thunderous and intense and any melody is only used to provide a more frightening soundscape. Dissonant arrangements come into play to prevent any sense of monotony and the tempo often changes from restrained pounding to total onslaught. Maelstrom's sticks are weapons of mass destruction and the talented drummer's arsenal is full of furious blastbeats, creative fills, tension-building rolls, military beats and magnificent cymbal-work. The production is clean enough so that you can enjoy the venomous madness these two musicians are spewing, but not too polished to take away the raw energy the record brims with.

Repeated listens only make Flesh Torn - Spirit Pierced sound better as it achieves the right balance between the malignant violence of the early days of black metal with the more sophisticated approach of recent years. The album's closer, "Raging Tides Of Time", is a very good example of this combination and the best black metal piece I've heard so far this year.

Nigredo claim that they "erased all traces of positiveness from the album's content". In Jungian Analytical Psychology, the process that defines "nigredo" is Shadow work, in which obscure and unconscious aspects of the Self are confronted and assimilated into consciousness so that a holistic perception of the Self can be developed.

Acknowledge your darkness and walk the path to individuation.

"Subconscious forever
Haunted by?
By glimpses at cosmic horrors"