FAUSTIAN - PARABLE OF THE SEWER

A confluence of dire forces, Australian band Faustian brings together perpetrators of horrific sonic assaults, crimes committed under the names of Abramelin, Werewolves, The Berzerker, Psycroptic, The Amenta, The Antichrist Imperium and more…a kind of caustic, damaging extreme metal supergroup if you will. Having proved time and again their mastery of wildly violent death metal as Werewolves, Faustian allows the triumvirate of conspirators to explore darker realms, in a blaze of blasphemous black metal. As guitarist Matt Wilcock put it when discussing Faustian's 2023 debut album, We Come As Angels, “if the Werewolves aesthetic is violence, then Faustian's is fear and horror”. Having recently announced their new alliance with the Apocalyptic Witchcraft label, Faustian are now poised to unleash their second album of ruinous malice and beguiling nightmares - Parable Of The Sewer…

Without a second of preamble or scene setting Parable Of The Sewer's opening track, 'I Curse You', hurls the listener into a raging storm of cataclysmic blast beats, overwhelming guitars and venomous, imperious vocals, delivering a damning indictment of humanity. The focus and intensity is fearsome, the impact shocking…but Faustian reveal themselves to be about more than just breathtaking musical firepower, as the parable unfolds. First single, 'Broken Better' is deeply unsettling, radiating an aura of evil, as the desolate poetry of the lyrics seeps into your blood, forming bonds of esoteric addiction, while 'I Want The Ride To Begin Again' is an eruption of magnificent, defiant grandeur, steeped in the absolute essence of black metal. This glorious paen to doomed rebellion possesses some insidious sorcery that makes you want to offer up your soul on whatever altar is presented, just to share in the offer of damnation. Every song on this album feels part of a greater whole, while burning with a fierce individual fire. From the implacable thunder and furious chaos of 'Immaculate' to 'Cephalophore's cascading stygian waves, beheading saints with riffs like scythes, Faustian embrace the fundamental tenents of black metal, excelling to such a degree in their execution that they impart new vigour and potency. In 'We Do Not Use Names Here' the evocative words are pronounced with fervour and weighty imprecation, summoning the soul harrowing force that suggests true evil and genuine danger - its passages of delicious, creeping menace tempting you to believe that Faustian have made exactly the sort of bargains that their name references. 'Tenements (Only The Wicked Walk In Circles) is a jagged, jarring, luring and threatening beast, the kind of song that will have you glimpsing movement in empty rooms from the corner of your eye; feeding you a bitter bile of paranoia as it snarls “afraid of mirrors, afraid of stairs, you feel like you're being followed everywhere…stalked by nightmares”. All of which finally delivers you into the arms of 'The Rot Shall Inherit The Earth', a love song to decay and collapse, a twisted hymn to corruption with guitars circling like vultures around a soon-to-be carcass. It's a horrifying invocation of worms that ends in a peal of bells and the screams of the possessed.

For all their bleak, self-deprecating humour, the members of the Faustian collective - drummer David Haley, guitarist Matt Wilcock and vocalist Sam Bean - have created something special with Parable Of The Sewer. This album is feral intensity, incendiary violence, unearthly majesty and mystery, fear and temptation; dread art that harks back to near forgotten days when black metal still had the power to frighten, intimidate and suggest a pathway to worlds behind the veil of accepted reality. As Conor Droney, head of Apocalyptic Witchcraft, has neatly offered in succinct summing up - Parable Of The Sewer is a “savage masterpiece from down under”. Look for its coming on July 24th, on Limited Edition Splatter Vinyl, Digipak CD, Cassette and digital formats.

Presale link here.

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