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.