This is the debut album from Portland, Oregon based LUCTUM, one of the most impressive Doom / Black / Death Metal bands that I have heard in the last years. The Doom Metal part is a big thing here, not in the sense of being slow, which they do at times, but the fact that their sound can conjure images of predition and no hope, as only very few bands were able to do lately (DESOLATE SHRINE is one of the other that I can recall). The vocals are more on the Black Metal side, although they do have an aura that fits the music in an almost perfect way. The production also must be noticed to be perfect for the music, with a very heavy, ominous guitar sound, pounding drums and an eerie atmosphere captured that is almost like the soundtrack for a horror movie. The wicked melodies, as can be heard in ‘Dithyrambic Awakening’, are almost trance-inducing with a hopeless melancholic touch, that only those who have mastered the arts of black awakenings are able to invoke. The fact that the people behind this band are also involved in many other veteran bands, shows in a way what a monster of an album they have created with their debut. The interludes included are also setting the atmosphere in such a way that when the guitar riff enters, it only gives birth to the inevitable: damnation. For me a contender for the best in this cursed 2020. Darkness take me to the depths… For more band info visit: www.facebook.com/luctumblackmetal, label contact: www.facebook.com/morbidchapelrecords