ninehertz

Only four months on from their Unending Descent sent us all a bit loopy with its twisted, creepy death and black metal, the Finish mob Citrinitas are back with another EP on the trusty Caligari Records. Even across only three songs, they provide enough evidence to have their sentence to be committed extended.

The Infernal Hunt opens with sporadic drums, misty winds and odd noises. It feels like they’re laying the ground for something mystical and strange, the guitars come through as a repeating death-doom line while venomous vocals can be heard spitting out from the fog, its simple lines contrast with the complex atmosphere intriguingly. As on their last EP there’s something in their presentation that truly grabs out at you.

Stella Signata changes tack, with a ghostly almost dungeon synth, folk black metal light-touch feel. It is wistful and distant, a half-remembered dream; you’d think – with the subject material, the band’s nature to date – this would be eerily creepy, but it is nice and positively affecting, the surprise of which is unsettling in itself.

The title track closes it out, leaving you in constant wonder as how they generate such eeriness. It is lo-fi – a sound muffled by cloud and swamped via its turgid pacing, but it is still so engrossing, where the vocals can be barely heard from within this quagmire, despite its simultaneous minimalist nature. It is black metal as from a dream, where, somehow, its heart shines through.

Once more I’m left a little dumbfounded, but realise I am totally invested. It has similarities in its charms to the wonderful Mutterseelenallein und aus eigener Kraft album from Ara last year. That they have returned so quickly maintains the mystique, a spell that will be hard to break free from.