SHADOW'S MORTUARY Kuoleman portit [CD]

PURITY THROUGH FIRE is proud to present SHADOW'S MORTUARY's highly anticipated second album, Kuoleman Portit, on CD, vinyl LP, and cassette tape formats. The CD and cassette versions shall be released on November 30th, while the vinyl version shall follow next year.

Criminally, SHADOW'S MORTUARY are still one of the best-kept secrets in the always-fertile Finnish black metal scene. The quartet formed in 2013, and patiently released two digital-only EPs - Kylmään Hautaan in 2015, and then Tulen Valtakunta in 2018 - before releasing their debut album, also titled Tulen Valtakunta, in 2018. That album was initially released on cassette through the cult Worship Tapes label, but soon did PURITY THROUGH FIRE step in to release it on a wider scale on CD format. Indeed, Tulen Valtakunta displayed righteously traditional and ever-fiery Finnish BLACK METAL - no more, but certainly no less - that possessed all the iron-clad trademarks of that idiom.

Wasting no time, SHADOW'S MORTUARY return with an equally strong second strike, Kuoleman Portit. A consolidation of all-too-considerable strengths, the eight-song/31-minute Kuoleman Portit wastes no time in making its point plain and proud: melancholic melodicism, cold-fire execution, a punkish straightforwardness but never primitively so, and simply strong songs. Truly, it's that lattermost element where most nowadays black metal fails, but SHADOW'S MORTUARY are old souls who drink deeply from the well of the ancients, and hereby unleash one harsh anthem after another, all done in their native tongue, which only heightens that harshness. References can confidently be made to the likes of Corvus-era Horna to even labelmates MALUM, but on evidence of Kuoleman Portit, SHADOW'S MORTUARY are just as certainly putting their own stamp on a noble tradition.

The more some things change, the more others should stay the same. With Kuoleman Portit do SHADOW'S MORTUARY declare they're prepared to uphold the banner of traditional Finnish black metal!