Of Darkness - Missa Tridentina - LP

Spanish abysmal black funeral doom miserists Of Darkness finally bring us their iconic 2023 light-devouring full-length abomination on vinyl format for the first time. Formed by members of Graveyard, Teitanblood and Emanation (among others), Of Darkness’s fist proper full-length album “Missa Tridentina” is a colossal, subsonic deluge of magmatic, agonizing misery churned from the wretched womb of the abyss. Hideously divergent and fearlessly experimental, Of Darkness’s own idealization of crushing and impenetrable extreme doom suffocation is beautifully adorned with elements of neoclassical composition, chamber music, dark ambient, and ritualistic experimental electronics to condemn the listener to a horrific disembodiment of perpetual aeonian torment. Few bands in recent times have had the vision and skill to capture and conjure the same realms of disembodied, slow-moving terror we'd seen masterfully harnessed in previous decades by the works of bands like Evoken, Nortt and particularly Tyranny, a band whom Of Darkness most resemble due to the seething evil and spiteful dread that permeates their aphotic craft. Yet the Spanish abyss-shapers seem to have taken this dismal, subterranean audial nightmare to an entire new plane of catastrophism as the aforementioned experimental and improvisational ornaments assembled from unconventional approaches and instrumentations are quite unprecedented for the style and seem to have pushed the music into an even more blighted niche of extremity, rarely - if ever before - witnessed at such a hideous and wretched state.