Pestilential Shadows
Cursed
Goatwarex 2007
Pestilential Shadows is the side project for Funeral Mourning's main man,
Desolate. Though some might argue it is the other way around. Who
would have thought that infernal heat of Australia would produce such a blast of
ice cold black metal. The riffing is catchy yet remains very bleak and
hostile to all that would seek shelter within its icy coils. At times
Cursed sounds very Nordic though I certainly wouldn't call this a clone of that
scene's style. I think they seem to have more in common with the free will
of the American scene while combining it with a sense of traditionalism.
An example of this sense of adventure in style melding would be the Katatonia
inspired rhythmic riffing towards the end of Impaled by the Moon. The
onslaught of black metal is tempered only by the inclusion of the orchestrally
ambient track, The Black Eucharist which falls squarely in the middle of the
album to divide the blackness into two equally hell spawned halves. Blood
for the Master with its flowing and skyward reaching talons of guitar harnessed
hatred opens the torrential Satanic deluge as soon as Black Eucharist ends.
The music is no frills and devoid of keyboards and other forced trends and
concentrates on quality craftsmanship instead. The guitar tone is spot on
being both thin and trebly while also possessing a quality of hollowness and
rushing wind. This contrasts with the cutting sharpness of Meririm's
vocals which embody the conjurings of a man possessed. The drums most of
the time are nearly nonexistent. One thing that I really respect and I
think gets overlooked is when a band makes the extra effort to bring together
both the music and the packaging into a focused presentation of their artistic
expression and Pestilential Shadows has gone this extra distance. The art
direction of the album is beautiful and midnight tinted in its presentation and
serves to enhance the the listening experience. Pestilential Shadows has
manifestly proven that the world is full of Darkness and there are no borders to
stop its spread. My existence has a blight upon it due the extreme
negativity invoked by this subterranean entity.