Band:	Reverorum Ib Malacht
Album:	Vad Är Inte Sju Huvud?
Style:	Dark Ambient, Black metal
Release date:	July 31, 2020
A review by:	Auntie Sahar

01. Bönehuset
02. Bli Vis Och Tjäna Din Gud
03. Till Försvar För Det Personliga Vittnesbördet
04. Herrens Ögon Svävar Över Hela Jorden (Halleluja! Det Är Historia!)
05. Att Drivas Av Kristi Kärlek Och Utföra Hans Uppdrag
06. Driv Ut Det Sjuka!
07. Bönelivets Yttersta Utpost
08. Evangeliet Går Ut
09. Herrens Tjänare Äro Herrens Tjänare
10. Andakt I Bönehuset - Ett Starkt Budskap Med Många Liknelser
11. Han Har Inte Besegrat Mig

It's been noted before that Catholicism, especially via the lore of the Old Testament, is often far more terrifying and horrific than any sort of Satanism or demon worship. But boy, do Reverorum Ib Malacht really drive home the point.

Yes, you've probably heard of Reverorum Ib Malacht by now. The Swedish black metal band that, around the mid 2010s or so, abandoned their themes of more standard fare religious blasphemy, subsequently embracing Catholicism and filling their jamz with a shit ton of creepy Latin chants and a dense layer of burning bush-inspired dark ambiance. Whether one regards this as a gimmick or not, there's little denying how radically this transformed the sound of the band from there, greatly amplifying the spine-tingling factor for Malacht in the process of their shift toward Jehovah and His messengers.

2020's Vad Är Inte Sju Huvud? (which I'm not even going to pretend I know how to pronounce) thus continues upon a path previously established by Reverorum Ib Malacht on De Mysteriis Dom Christii and their 2018 album with the obnoxiously long title. A fusion of black metal and dark ambient at such a level that the two become almost indecipherable from each other is the name of the game here. In a slowly escalating fashion, the band take their time developing their sonorous assault via a hazy, droning guitar style, an array of growls, shrieks, chants, roars, and?. an industrial aesthetic? Yes, this time around Malacht have made their atypical style even more unusual by amping up the gritty electronic factor considerably, making their music even more haunting abrasive. 12 Disciples with guitar, noise pedals, and a drum machine? Something like that, yes.

The problem Reverorum Ib Malacht run into here, however, is that, ironic as it may sound, Vad Är Inte Sju Huvud? is simply too much of a good thing. Just over the 90 minute mark and likely the longest Malacht release to date, the album packs a lot of great, interesting ideas, most of which yield a highly effective application, but that just take up too much space and start to overstay their welcome after a point. Considering the intensely bleak delivery of Malacht, 90 minutes of hellish blackened industrial ambient gets to be a bit much. In short, there's a good amount of fat trimming that the band could have afforded to undertake here, particularly on the tracks that amount to little more than extended periods of ambiance (2nd, 4th, 7th, 11th), which easily could have either been shortened or somehow combined into into the more metal - leaning tracks for a more concise delivery.

Its need for some refinement aside, however, on the whole Vad Är Inte Sju Huvud? is still an extremely stimulating and highly original release. Not stopping for a second to appeal to the many who never quite "got it" with them, Reverorum Ib Malacht instead take their twisted vision of Catholic ambient black metal one step farther with the enlarging of the industrial dimension of their sound, resulting in a delivery arguably even more hypnotically violent than their prior material. Despite being a bit too long for its own good, Vad Är Inte Sju Huvud? is for the most part a step into interesting new territory for Reverorum Ib Malacht. If they stick to this sound while keeping subsequent releases more around the 50 minute - 1 hour mark, I'm definitely onboard.