Info
- Band(s): Eerified Catacomb
- Label(s): Death Hymns
- Release Format(s): 12" vinyl
- Release Year: 2024
- Review Date: December 29, 2024
- Author(s): FelixS
After no less than 2 full-lengths and 18 short players, Canada’s Eerified Catacomb is on its third album. You might wonder where the inspirer behind this band gets all his time from, because apart from Eerified Catacomb, he maintains a whole host of other bands and projects, of which the fantastic Nächtlich is probably the best known. Although the discography of this project is already more than considerable, this is the first time Eerified Catacomb makes it to these pages. This certainly has nothing to do with the quality of the music, as it is admirably consistent throughout the entire back catalogue.
Should this also mean that the band has yet to pass your ears, you can best imagine a mix between a more atmospheric Nächtlich, Drowning The Light and Nocternity. The raw-sounding riffs play as big a role as the keyboards, and for the most part align together to give the album’s atmosphere its gloomy character. The equally raw vocals and production further deliver the cold sound that typifies the work of Eerifier (in Nächtlich under the name U.E.).
Despite not needing a comparison with Nächtlich at all, it keeps popping up unasked because Eeriefied Catacomb has quite a bit in common in terms of musical signature. But because of the influences, or at least similarities with the repetitive and hypnotic character of the older work of the aforementioned Drowning The Light and also the sinister Nocternity, the music in this solo project is a bit more versatile. In terms of dynamics, too, this is a bit more vibrant. Eerifier alternates good upbeat Punk rhythms with slower and lingering pieces, but other slightly more unorthodox structures are not shunned here either. A good example is ‘Freeing The Souls Of Purgatory’, which sounds both inventive and conservative at the same time; creative in its musical themes, but very regressive in terms of its use of rough almost Darkthrone-like riffs.
The conceptual idea behind ‘Sordid Realm Of Apparition’ is well presented through samples from an old film or documentary on witchcraft. Something that, together with the cover design, where the white cut-and-paste logo is incidentally also reminiscent of Nächtlich’s covers, contributes to the album’s ominous and gloomy atmosphere.
In case you, for whatever reason, haven’t stumbled across Eeriefied Catacomb before, ‘Sordid Realm Of Apparition’ is an excellent time to get connected. The album gathers all aspects of previous recordings nicely and exudes exactly that atmosphere you should expect from an album in this genre.
Death Hymns
- Country: USA
- Style: Black Metal, Grindcore
- Links: Facebook, Instagram
