SIGNAL REX is proud to present a special spilt album from NATHR and ORDO CULTUM SERPENTIS, Shadows Crawl, on CD, vinyl LP, and cassette tape formats. The CD and tape versions shall be released on February 4th while the vinyl version will follow later this year.
Shadows Call comprises a total of 37 minutes and two epic-length tracks, one each from SIGNAL REX’s most striking discoveries in recent years, NATHR and ORDO CULTUM SERPENTIS. NATHR are up first with “The Burial,” a nearly-20-minute track that duly lives up its namesake. Plaintive and placid, yet unsettlingly so, for more than half its massive duration, “The Burial” mesmerizes with a strangely beautiful aspect before exploding into a slo-mo crush akin to the cosmos crumbling away, deceptively peaceful in its resigned oblivion. ORDO CULTUM SERPENTIS are second, with the nearly-17-minute “Filii Serpentis Nigri.” Much like their two celebrated EPs last year, the duo sonically approximate a massive boulder ritualistically opening into an impossibly vast tomb. But, like their split-mates, halfway through the track, they surprise with a jarring-yet-somehow-seamless transition into ritualistic blasting, sealing that same tomb with utter finality.
A long-lasting hidden black metal is the most striking feature of this split. Both bands resort to eschatological resources of extreme music and calmly develop the evil essence in their souls.
that’s what “Shadows Crawl” is made of. A sublime and dense fog that deepens in a kaleidoscope of sound with voices that echo in the long distance.
The ritualistic climate is predominant in NATHR due to the funereal climate proposed by the track. it is as if your soul walked along the valley of the shadow of death.
ORDO CULTUM SERPENTIS’ track is more drawn out, a wail of ardor. The slow and rhythmic guitars with a funereal drums that energizes give a slow mood and time seems to be suspended. This track brings a lot of 90s BM like Beherit and Mortuary Drape. But it also recalls the footprint of the clandestine Blaze.
Simply put, blackened doom doesn’t get much better than this. And NATHR and ORDO CULTUM SERPENTIS together a create a complementary work rather than a split “album” full of throwaway tracks. Feel their Shadows Crawl!
