Tortorum - Katabasis, CD

Following on from their celebrated Extinctionist debut, TORTORUM waste little time in upping the ante for inventive, widescreen black metal orthodoxy with Katabasis. The pan-international trio's second album, Katabasis is unremittingly dark yet colored with shades of texture generally beyond the purest-of-the-pure hordes: TORTORUM strike deep into the burning heart of black metal whilst exhibiting dazzling 'n' daring compositional prowess. Each song is an epic in its own right, and a cursory scan of the album's song titles - "In Nameless NonBeing," "Into the Sixth Coil," and penultimate closer "Beyond The Earth And Air And Sun - reveal that the band's lyricism is as deadly committed to transcendence as their multi-hued music. The black sun rises, and it shines upon TORTORUM...(N.T.B.) [Info from W.T.C. Productions catalogue]