Since its inception in 2022, Italian project Vampyriia has been the sinister vision of S.N. Noster, and inactivity has never been part of his vocabulary. In just a few short years, he has unleashed seven releases, including a full-length that laid the foundation for his bleak sonic universe.
Now Vampyriia resurfaces with a brand-new EP, issued on cassette by the Dutch cult label Void Wanderer Productions. The partnership feels inevitable: the label thrives on unpolished, uncompromising Black Metal, and Noster’s work fits seamlessly into that dark lineage. This release sees him pushing his sound into even harsher territory—raw, venomous, and steeped in an atmosphere so dense it lingers like a curse. The specter of the second wave looms large, yet it is filtered through a contemporary lens of nihilistic aggression.
Vampyriia’s strength lies not only in raw riffcraft but in the way Noster sculpts aura. Through layers of lo-fi guitars, cavernous drones, and spectral keyboards, he creates a suffocating soundscape that feels ritualistic in nature. The opening track, Ghost of Moon and Cosmic Nebula, wastes no time in casting the spell: the listener is drawn into a twilight realm where reality and the arcane dissolve into one another. Rather than mere aggression, this is Black Metal as immersive descent—a journey into shadow.
Echoes of Darkthrone, Bathory, and other cornerstones of the genre ripple through the release, not as imitation but as spectral presences. On Visions of Grim Void Possession, the riffs coil around haunting melodies that drip with unease, revealing Noster’s talent for balancing violence with eerie restraint. It’s a composition that feels at once primitive and otherworldly.
The EP’s final movements are among its most striking. The Infinite Melancholic Sadness in particular stands out: here, the vocals claw their way to the forefront, channeling a raw, tortured essence that unmistakably recalls Quorthon’s earliest invocations. The piece carries the same sense of spiritual desolation and bleak grandeur that defined the underground of the 1980s, yet reimagined through Vampyriia’s own vision.
What emerges is not simply another addition to the Black Metal underground but a work that bridges eras, dragging the essence of the past into the present with unholy conviction. With this EP, S.N. Noster has carved out another obsidian shard in his growing body of work—a release steeped in dread, mysticism, and reverence, and one that confirms Vampyriia’s place as a rising force in the European scene.
