Genre: Black Death Metal
Label: Transcending Obscurity Records
Country: Italy
Line Up:
Aren - vocals - bass
Mornak - guitars
Ulviros - drums
Aren from Bergamo (North Italy) has been breathing and living in the undergrowth of the most intransigent Black Metal for almost 25 years, first as the mind of the band Unholy Land and then with the brief interlude of Soulphureus, now he spreads his anti-Christian and anti-clerical message has the name of Xpus and with this band, through Transcending Obscurity Records, in 2020 he releases this second album with the not very reassuring title “In Umbra Mortis Sedent”! Eerie tolling of bells and disturbing sounds catapult into a stinking and shady world, a kingdom of demons and terrifying beings, a place to which this trio gives life with a decidedly catacombic and sulphurous musical proposal. "Into the Sphere of Madness" has a pressing and violent riffing that manages to intertwine wonderfully with the tempo changes that from the classic Black Metal style carry the song on decidedly Death Metal shades, the old-fashioned one such as Winter, Divine Eve, Disembowelment. "The Gates of Doom" begins with a sound choice reminiscent of the very first Deicide/Amon, the voice of Ares is the absolute protagonist together with his bass lines that give the song the right weight! The album flows pleasantly in its intransigence that does not allow space for melodies, the central part of "Broken is the Seal of Equilibrium" is a beautiful and perfect soundtrack for a Sunday walk in the swampy lands of Florida; the album runs fast on the same directives with "Clerical Rooms of Depravity" in which the Xpus hurl all their contempt towards the representatives of the last "absolute monarchy" still present in the so-called Western world. In the following songs, a bit of repetitiveness emerges in the composition, but the album continues to maintain its pleasantness until the outro "Repentance Forgiveness and Salvation" which becomes a worthy conclusion to this second Xpus opera!
Fulvio G.
