IGNIS GEHENNA
Baleful Scarlet Star
Séance (2017)
Rating: 8/10
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Australia’s Ignis Gehenna is the solo project of former Erebus Enthroned frontman Nihilifer, and Baleful Scarlet Star is the singer’s debut full-length studio album.
The cover of this opus is fantastic, and the sound held within kind of matches the chaos and creativity suggested. It’s still familiar black metal noise, where cosmically-tinged guitars reach into otherworldly spheres and rasping vocal traits flirt with cascading black drums, but what I do like about this six track affair are the melodies.
Although we are often treated / mistreated by barbed hyper rattles and scathing wintry attacks, we also get joyous tapestries of sinister sound. And the stall is immediately set by the catchy ‘Serpent Oracle’, which above all is a mid-paced and atmospheric grate into the nether regions of Hades.
A strong sense of the epic pervades the air as each of the six tunes reveals itself like some black, cosmic vacuum. The tracks are lengthy, although in a sense you feel they have to be because they are so far-reaching, raging like crystal-laced oceans of icy abandonment, but first and foremost sticking to those recognisable black metal aesthetics; the rasping, biting, snarling guitar sound and those equally vicious vocals. But it’s nothing distant or remote. Indeed, at any time one feels as if this could develop into a deathlier rage.
The title track trudges rather than snipes with speed. This way the drums can make their presence known as a persistent chant of the morose as the vocals become one with the instrumentation – a sort of gargled, rancid seethe if you will.
As each track rolls by, one applauds the dramatic qualities that Nihilifer constructs. ‘Edict Of Blood’ shifts between moods, and like the title track brings a moody speed but also a slow-burning evil.
‘Litany Unto Thanateros’ brings more esoteric substance; again there’s that marrying of dramatic atmosphere and something more primal, but never out of control. And as instrumental ‘Anamnesis’ brings the album to a close, I’m finding myself well and truly devoured by this compact and yet involved work. Baleful Scarlet Star has come on leaps and bounds from Ignis Gehenna’s 2010 EP Revelations Of Sinister Rebirth. This time round Nihilifer seems to be thinking more in terms of creating authority rather than just expressing extremity for the sake of it.
Other black metal acts could learn a lot by the way this impressive album has been constructed. I’ve always liked black metal with an identity and more than one layer, but above all I want to hear an album that is punchy and commanding, and Ignis Gehenna have served up a real treat here within a genre that is well-worn and all too eager to shock, even though Satan gave up the ghost long ago.
Neil Arnold
