Dutch one-man Black Metal band Half Visible Presence is the brainchild of Arvath, whose musical touch can also be heard in bands like Israthoum, Perditor and Onheil. With Half Visible Presence he has released a split album with several other acts (more of a various artists album, really) and a split 7” EP with Monte Penumbra before he would come up with this EP, ‘Three-Faced Scapular Of Death’, which was originally released in 2020 through his new label Duplicate Records. It took another two years before it finally got its much deserved vinyl treatment.
This conceptual EP drags you through three phases of death, with each of the three tracks being named after those phases: ‘Loss’, ‘Liberation’ and ‘Retaliation’. The music that accompanies the conceptual idea fits seamlessly with each song, with ‘Loss’ being especially dark and compelling and ‘Liberation’ having a surprisingly beautiful ending where even violins take the lead role. The closing ‘Retaliation’, in turn, is a song best described as a kind of Funeral Doom-like soundscape where the almost magical vocals bring an incantatory ambience. This typifies the versatile music of Half Visible Presence anyway, it is a motley collection of Black Metal, Dark/Gothic Metal and almost angelic (Funeral) Doom Metal. At some point it reminded me of the atmosphere of the excellent 1995 released ‘In Absentia Christi’-album from Italian Monumentum. This nearly 20-minute immersive EP is definitely recommended for those who like exciting and somewhat unconventional metal.
