Tenebrae in Perpetuum / Krohm

The most satisfying split releases are those that manage to provide new material from a pair of artists whose styles complement each other well, so Italians Tenebrae in Perpetuum and Washington State's Krohm already have this in common, as both produce huge and resonant walls of slowly moving black metal that rely centrally on the emotions of despair and obscure majesty to mesmerize the audience into a state of loss; loss not for having listened to the audio work, but loss in that the music will summon dire feelings of regret or self punishment for one's perceived failures in life. Debemur Morti is perhaps the perfect label for such sorrow laden convictions, and the both of the artists level out with about 21 minutes of material that is difficult to escape once you have let yourself in the front door.

Tenebrae in Perpetuum are one of my favorite bands on the Italian scene, and I was a major fan of the cavernous, diabolic tones found on their latest opus L'Eterno Maligno Silenzio, which came during a year in which numerous such releases were making their scars upon my spirit. Here, the band offer a trio of Roman numerated tracks that are all around 6-7 minutes in length, with titanic, rasping vocals over stringy, resonant guitars that breed only ghostlike qualities as they writhe across a bottomless ravine of abyssal rhythms. They seem to become more engrossing as they proceed: "I" fires on all confrontational cylinders, a mirror of their recent full length efforts; "II" uses clean, sparse guitars to great effect as the vocals erupt like wells of blood newly prospected from a human host, and then the battering assault begins in earnest. "III" provides a continued storm, and whilst I can't award it for being unique, its dips in and out of clean, creepy tones make for unseasoned but breathtaking transitions.

The US band Krohm is tonally warmer, more complete than their Italian counterparts here. Whereas Tenebrae leaves some element of their sound strictly to the imagination, with a thin if throbbing bass mechanic, Numinas creates a fuller body with the more prominent use of synths, and thick rocking surges that remind of earlier Katatonia meets Agalloch, and a more individual streak to each of his three pieces: the desperate, dreary majesty of "The Black Bridge", the hissing asylum dementia of "Toccato Dalla Desecrazione", and the almost mighty metal transformation of "Sentinel Monolith", which is the single most breathtaking track on this entire split. Despite the slight tonal variations, Numinas is a good match for the Italians, because both provoke a semblance of melancholic riffing which they excel at despite any familiarity it bears with other artists of the depressive black metal scene.

This is a quality split, but it's not for the impatient. The songs are not extremely long, all hovering about the 7 minute mark, but they still take some time to work their witching ways and castrate the remaining hope and soul of the listener. This said, I would not really recommend it to anyone who was not already familiar and morbidly delirious over the bands' prior output, or dense and depressive black metal in the vein of Shining. Krohm comes out slightly head due to the slightly stronger character of his pieces, but the Italians are not far behind, and should quite please fans of Antico Misticismo or L'Eterno Maligno Silenzio.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

With the thoroughly under-whelming experience of Italian black metallers Tenebrae In Perpetuum 2009 effort "L'Eterno Maligno Silenzio" still lingering in the memory the thought of their split with Krohm, an American unknown entity to me, never felt all that appealing. "L'Eterno..." was not so much bad, just indelibly dull, grey in more ways than one, and unable to stir any emotion in me whatsoever despite it's ticking of most of the grim BM boxes. At 3 songs each, with TIP's conveniently titled in Roman numerals, their offering is more of the same harrowing, bleak, destitute, raw BM ideal for frozen nights in surrounded by candlelight. "I", besides the typically distant tortures screams of pain, is slow and turgid, highlighted only by some powerful synth usage in the middle section. "II" continues along this path at greater speed before "III" starts more promisingly, picking up Darkthrone titbits along it's way to a conclusion of depressive misery notable more for it's unremitting bleakness than any particular musical endeavours found along the way.

Krohm's half begins in more ambient fashion with synth dominating over the distant scratchy guitars and Numinas' croaky vocals giving the air of a band (well, man) who doesn't enjoy life to the full. The slower pace in "The Black Bridge" is the most welcome moment so far though to proclaim any great musical prowess in it's work would be stretching the point too far; a hiss of guitars and flat simple drumming emit a decent atmosphere but nothing that hasn't been done ten thousand times before and won't a thousand more. "Toccato Dalla Desecrazione" (a tribute to Numinas' Italian friend in TIP?) feels as if a greater concentration has gone into it's construction as it's swaying rhythm and old Katatonia-like soloing add to the gloss of misery in more sophisticated fashion than TIP managed on their half. "Sentinel Monolith", beginning like an old Burzum outtake and retaining that charge for much of the song's duration may not affect the greater world of black metal but it's simple soloing and moments of tangible riff at least had me nodding in approval.

To disguise the fact both these one-man BM bands sound like dozens of others would be like arguing the Antarctic is a sweltering paradise, with only sporadic moments suggesting either have made much effort to create any sort of identity. A split for the elitist underground only then but if you want a victor from this contest, it would be USA 1 Italy 0.

Originally written for www.Rockfreaks.net