01. Disamistade I
02. Beyond The Transcendent Darkness
03. Disamistade II
04. Underground Halls Of The Oldest Goddess Stronghold
05. The Great Escape
06. And The Firmament Will Burn To Quench The Pain Of This Earth
07. Deliverance

The once young promising project Downfall Of Nur has finally returned after 11 years with an album that has a lot to uncover. However, is the monstrous 80-minute length justified, and does it make up for lost time?

The Argentinian black metal scene isn't particularly well known, on an international scale at least, but that's not to say it doesn't contain a few gems worth looking into for fans of the genre. One in particular is the one-man folk/atmospheric black metal project Downfall Of Nur, formed by multi-instrumentalist Antonio Sanna in 2013. The concept behind the band name derives from "The Fall Of The Nuragic Civilization," and is split between the words "Nur", the word for Nuraghe, a distinct stone tower built by the ancient Sardinian people, and "Downfall", representing the eventual dissolution of this prehistoric Mediterranean society. The main theme behind this project is the preservation, memory, and history of the sacred land that was wounded and silenced over the course of time, while lyrically focusing on its ancestral history, folklore, and culture. Musically, the project incorporates traditional folk instruments with black metal to atmospherically depict the majestic naturistic soundscapes of the bygone age.

I'll never forget my introduction to the band back in 2015 when I first listened to the full-length debut Umbras De Barbagia. My venture into extreme metal was fresh at this point and atmospheric black metal was a subgenre I knew very little about, aside from a few obvious heavyweight giants such as Agalloch and Summoning. I always had a soft spot for folk, even before my introduction to metal, and I was revelling in my new discovery into black metal, so the merging of the two styles was an inevitable winner for me. The debut is one of those albums that holds a special place in my heart and still remains one of my all-time favourite albums in atmospheric and blackened folk. Unfortunately, after the debut the project seemed to vanish off the radar, until now. 11 years have passed, and the project has now returned with the highly anticipated (for me anyway) poetically titled sophomore And The Firmament Will Burn To Quench The Pain Of This Earth. Has the wait been worth it, and does it live up to the debut?

The project's theme was introduced on Umbras De Barbagia, translating to "Shadows of Barbagia", which refers to the mountainous region of Barbagia in central Sardinia, in which followed the chronological rise and fall of the Nuragic era. This latest album expands on this concept further by exploring into the ancient culture, symbolism, and mythology of Sardinia. The theme follows the mythological rupture between humanity and the Ancient Sardinian Mother Goddess (representing fertility and the earth) who grows weary of human cycles of vengeance and death, leading to an inevitable purification through fire. It also focuses on human mothers who carry the grief of losing children to ancestral feuds, which is primarily rooted in the disamistade, a Sardinian cultural tradition of ritualistic family feuds.

The debut itself was long at just under an hour in length, but the sophomore surpasses that by some margin, almost reaching the 80-minute mark. This means there's a substantial amount to digest and uncover here, and it must require your full attention to do so. It's made up of 7 songs that vary in length from the opener "Disamistade I" being the shortest at just over 3 minutes, to the epic closer "Deliverance" being the longest at over 21 minutes. The album is a tension-building, ritualistically atmospheric journey that through expansive sonic compositions capture the suffering of historical events. It expands on the debut by blending the distorted hypnotic tremolos, rapid blast beats, and tortuous shrieks of traditional black metal with vast dark ambience and elements of folk. However, it's musically more dense than the debut, and the folk elements aren't used as a primary feature. Instead it focuses heavily on long moderate-to-slow drones and doom tempos, with sprawling post-metal buildups, and long dark ambient passages.

Overall I don't find this sophomore has the same majestic atmosphere as the debut, and I miss the folk elements and melodies that made the debut memorable for me. However, this album focuses on something else entirely. The colossal length does posses a real challenge though, especially where the closing song "Deliverance" is concerned. 21 minutes does seem a touch excessive for what it's meant to achieve, and there are several more occasions throughout that I find unnecessarily drag and hold back the momentum. The production is also dry and flat, with certain key elements such as the riffs being buried in the mix. However, as a whole, this album is an unforgettable emotionally tense journey filled with an overwhelming sense of sorrow, dread, and despair, and it creates an immersive atmosphere unlike anything in atmospheric black recently, one that portrays the devastating events of Ancient Sardinia in authentic and vivid detail.

Performance:	8
Songwriting:	7
Originality:	8
Production:	6