Narbeleth - Through Blackness and Remote Places (2015)

We get all kinds of bands from all the corners of the world, but it is quite rare to have one from Cuba. Today we have Cuba’s most savage and destructive Black Metal band: Narbeleth. As a one-man battalion, this band perfectly captures the punishing rawness of Scandinavian Black Metal from the late 90’s, and delivers eight brilliant tracks filled with hate and crushing riffs.

Opening with “Sons of the Grand Cosmic Emanation”, Dakkar unleashes a bestial barrage of unholy melodic BM riffs unlike anything we have every heard before from the small Cuban island. The quality of the music is uncanny as it demolishes everything in its way with a mixture of Immortal acrobatics with the rawness of Gorgoroth. The band’s sound is quite compact and brutal, and the influences of Norwegian Taake are very present in songs like “Mesmerized by the Pale Ghost Moonlight”.

The band easily changes its tempo with hypnotic songs like the depraved “An Unholy Gathering” and the creepy “The Lightbringer”. For the fans of all-out brutality, “Delivering the Very Soul” and “The Eternal Return” are two songs that will hit you like a bag of bricks to the face. If more sinister and raw atmospheres is what you crave, “Through Blackness, and Remote Places” is the song for you.

Closing with a Judas Iscariot cover of “Gaze Upon Heaven in Flames”, that actually sounds more devilish and imposing than the original, the band ends one of the most punishing and explosive releases of 2015. Featuring tons of excellent melodic passages and brilliant head banging moments, “Through Blackness, and Remote Places” is one hell of a release that should be included in any self-respecting Black Metal fan. Be prepared for this hellish album.

Label: Folter Records

Release: August 28th, 2015

Genre: Black Metal

Country: Cuba