ANCIENT BURIAL Beyond the Watchtowers LP [VINYL 12"]

ANCIENT BURIAL hail from the darkest underbelly of Portugal's forever-thriving raw black metal scene. Although a new entity, with no prior public recordings existing, the band mysteriously may or may not include members of other high-profile hordes. Nevertheless, what they've created with their debut album stands for serious reckoning. Ominously titled Beyond the Watchtowers, ANCIENT BURIAL's first full-length indeed goes BEYOND: a hysteric, hellacious black (w)hole of horrific frequencies, each smothering the senses with hypnotic magick and almost avant-garde crudity.

In one sense, the album slots complementarily alongside so much paradigmatic Portuguese black metal, particularly from the Black Circle, instilling a similar sense of possession and otherworldly intent; but in another, more accurate sense, ANCIENT BURIAL bury themselves more deeply into trance states that delicately walk the line between improvisational meltdown and motorik catatonia, carrying over that beyond-obsidian embrace right into the very heart of the listener. Or, more accurately, those who would go Beyond the Watchtowers...

Mystery or none, ANCIENT BURIAL will be performing at this year's Invicta Reqviem Mass VI, curated by SIGNAL REX and set to take place on December 4th and 5th in Porto, Portugal.