The Conjuration of the Southern Circle

Decayed is an institution in Portugal, apparently, but I’d never really even heard of them before recently. Goes to show you you should entrench yourselves in other things than your own norms. The world is a big place with a lot of music.

This is their first album way back from 1994. The Conjuration of the Southern Circle is the kind of grimy, flailing black-thrash from before either genre was even properly defined, a kind of oozing primal ur-sound. It’s born of Venom and old Hellhammer with an added modern pinch of the kind of sharp blackened buzzsaw-sound of the then-current Darkthrone sound.

They rip out some garroting barb-wire tremolo riffing, and then some songs slow down to eerie, sludgy pounding. Guitarist J.A., who in the decades since this album has expanded his repertoire to a bunch of other bands all also utilizing similarly stripped-down old school guitar mindsets, just has a great feel for the riff. The riffs on this thing are hefty and hard-nosed, distorted slabs of sonic evil. “Unholy Deity,” “Nocturnal Prayers,” the eerie trudge of “Moon of a Wolferian Shadow”,” shit, there’s just great songs all over this thing. This album and a lot of their early ones also had Ironsword's Tann as an extra guitarist, and you can hear the kind of primal barbarian edge he'd bring to his own band already in play on this.

The band shows a predilection to rip into some blazing Slayer Show No Mercy-esque leads, flailing, zealous guitar squealing lunacy, a little more classic metal influence than some later black metal might’ve dabbled in - “Circle of the Castrian Mountains” is maybe the most overt. They try and evoke some of that horror movie vibe with some cool tolling-bell and howling-wind sound effects - the first few songs don’t waste any time setting this palpable mood. There’s quite a lot of dynamic on here. The album comes together as a whole, using various sounds and tricks to build a real atmosphere and making it all feel cohesive. Fans of any of these old, filthy black metal bands ought to find stuff to like.

All our accomplishments as a species and somehow repetitive, chaotic distortion with some bestial growling hits that animal part of ourselves, a universal connector, bands all over the world bashing this stuff out. The aural equivalent of grainy VHS horror movies and old dog-eared pulp paperback books. This fits right in - just has that old, underground appeal, and once you’re a fan you don’t stop.