STRIGOI - Bathed In A Black Sun

STRIGOI – Bathed In A Black Sun (EP)
Release Date: 3rd November 2023
Label: Season Of Mist
Bandcamp
Genre: Blackened Death, Doom, Crust.
FFO: Inter Arma, Withered, Vallenfyre, Triptykon.
Review By: Mark Young

Released as an EP, the 5 songs presented here are unreleased tracks taken from the Viscera album sessions and is a blacker-than-black trip into the UK extreme metal scene. Taking in a number of genres along the way, it mixes up grind / crust / death and doom and spews it forth. Just by looking at the titles you know you are not entering the land of shiny happy people.

It’s just excellent. Riffs come at you sideways / upside down, all matched by some storming drumming that anchors and continually drives them forward. There is an homage to Celtic Frost on A Spear of Perfect Grief that reminds me of Circle of Tyrants (which is always welcome) and the opener, Bathed in a Black Sun kicks off with chiming guitars and ethereal backing set against a lumbering riff that is heavy AF. The vocals hark back to that early 90s style of Morbid Angel, and they are royal here, courtesy of Greg Mackintosh. What I really love about this is that it closes out by returning to the start, effectively closing its own chapter. The Grotesque is a blast-beat special with a lean into that crust/punk style. Short and sweet with rapid-fire Beautiful Stigmata wrapping in 42 seconds of lovely noise.

My favorite is next – A Spear of Perfect Grief, which is one of my songs of the year. It has everything I want in extreme metal, and I won’t be taking questions on it. And the guitar tone? Forget it. It has that power to it without a loss in clarity. Finally, we have The Construct of Misery, replete with whammy-bar abuse and heads-down riff that is shoved out of the way for more of that crust and then gone and done.

This is a great introduction for anyone who has an interest in great extreme music from the UK. I haven’t heard the album they were culled from and can only assume that those songs are better than these in some respect, possibly that these didn’t sit well with the others or that the others provided a more cohesive whole. I suppose that is not important really, as these are provided now, and you should absolutely give them a go. Vital, immediate music.