Artist: Vetus Obscurum
Title: Blood Revelations
Type: EP
Label: Debemur Morti Productions

Interesting genetic make-up behind this USBM horde; for a start there is one musician and two vocalists in the band. The instrumentalist, Numinas has played in various outfits verging from extreme doom (Evoken, Funebrarum), raging death (Drawn & Quartered) and black metal (Abazagorath and Krohm). The screamers have done time in similarly varied outfits including a couple of the above as well as Lord Gore, Plague Bearer and even Bethlehem. So you can imagine that this is hardly going to be a shoddy affair. Vetus Obscurum certainly did take obscurity to heart as well, as they split up before releasing anything and only recently got back together to put together this, their debut EP / demo.

Having not heard Krohm who Numinas originally formed after splitting this lot in 96 and concentrated his efforts on, the band that Vetus Obscurum do bring to mind the most is probably Abazagorath. The songs here have that blazing intensity and ferociousness about them. The spiteful prickling guitars on the opening self named track have a barbed jagged viscosity behind them as they weave away, drums thud in the background and the vocals howl in angry, feral and coated in indignation. This is no exercise in utilising two completely different vocal styles, in fact they simply compliment each other and become, if anything as one. It is not full on rage here either as there is time to drop into a doom-laden funereal mass towards the end of the song. ‘The Omen from the East’ quickly swaggers back in and a spiralling guitar scythe flails out the mix and fluidly trails around the biting vocals. There is actually plenty going on here with sudden tempo changes and a real charged atmosphere lurking away. This is good orthodox black metal with nothing by way of compromise. Not that we would expect anything else from the ever reliable Debemur Morti.

With 4 tracks spanning over 23 minutes it is pretty much like listening to half an album here and I am left wanting the rest of it. Apparently ‘scattered recordings’ from the group’s earlier incarnation have also been unearthed. You can listen to this complete release online at the link below.

http://www.myspace.com/vetusobscurum

Pete Woods

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