A couple of albums in, France’s LUNAR TOMBFIELDS, consisting of members M (guitars, bass, vocals) and Azh (drums, guitars), sound more confident than they should, considering their short life span. And in case you wonder where they got their name, it’s from a song by VENENUM. But what is a lunar tombfield itself? Fuck if I know. All I know is their second album “An Arrow To The Sun” is a hidden gem in the atmospheric Black Metal world. ‘An Elegy To The Fog Dancer’ opens the album with a hazy, dreamy, mesmerizing, down beat guitar that goes on for three minutes leading into ‘Solar Charioteer’, an energized nine-minute epic of Black Metal proportions with foggy vocals and screeching guitars that sound like what I’d imagine as the sun scalds and burns the skin to an ashy husk. It’s the atmosphere that drives this song forward through undiscovered realms. It rises, floats, flutters, morphs and streams through layers of aural bliss. ‘Represailles’ is a thunderous, stalking monolithic beast which shambles and wavers, yet maintaining a semblance of pure glorious vigor. The fourth track ‘As Iron Calls, So Pile The Dreams’ cracks the barrier of buzzing guitars and throat-ripping vocals. Another lengthy but satisfying track that volleys back and forth with a hunger for more and a sense of desperation at the same time. ‘The Amber Herd’ and ‘Le Chant Des Tombes’ are both eight-minute numbers which soar to the heavens before swooping back down to the barren earth to bludgeon their prey. “An Arrow To The Sun” is a fucking powerul album. You don’t want to mosh to it. You don’t want to sacrifice a baby goat to it. You just want to bask in its glory. It has the strength of ten hydras while knowing when to whisper gently. For more info, check out www.facebook.com/lunartombfields or www.facebook.com/ladloproductions