Country: Spain
Genre: Black metal
Mini album: Puro Carbón
Format: Jewel case CD, vinyl, digital (see Bandcamp link for more information)
Label: Immortal Frost Productions
Release date: February 28, 2025
"Puro Carbón" is Cryfemal’s latest release, following their 2023 full-length album, "La Gran Victoria Del Mal." If you’ve heard that album, you may recall its profound depth and atmospheric richness, evoking sensations of descending into hell’s deepest recesses, immersed in a tempest of searing heat and unquenchable flames. Minimal songwriting deviations created a massive layered sound reflecting Spanish occultism, which involves hidden traditions, Catholic superstition, medieval legends, and European paganism.
The lower-tuned seven-string guitars enhanced the portrayal of eternal damnation, subjecting you to an unending fall while infernal fire and tormented screams intensified and converged, reaching an agonizing crescendo. The lower scales conveyed unfathomable darkness; tremolo picking resembled flames licking and melting flesh from bone; the thick atmosphere depicted furious winds relentlessly buffeting you; and the shrieking vocals rose from the depths, promising endless torture at the inevitable terminus.
With their new outing, Cryfemal pushes themselves to surpass the chaos they crafted previously. However, if you’re expecting an exact copy of their last album, your expectations may be subverted. If "La Gran Victoria Del Mal" was like paying a visit to hell and back, then "Puro Carbón" is being irrevocably possessed by all the devils of hell, embarking on a spree of calculated violence.
"Puro Carbón" features less atmosphere and shorter track durations, with a slightly refined sound and streamlined, precise musicianship. The energy and focus they previously channeled into creating a vast atmosphere are now redirected into fitting greater violent intensity into the shorter tracks. The push toward chaos needed to represent this is as tangible as the sensations of being roasted, flayed, and suffocated in that realm below the ground, but Cryfemal makes it easy to discern the form of their tremolo picking and the manner in which they shape their arrangements.
The raspy vocals, instead of being high-pitched, carry a harrowing edge, searing into your mind like countless condemned souls loosed to take control, urging you to vomit forth fire as the volcano erupts. The lyrics, poetic, conveyed through those rasping, harrowing vocals, evoke a solitary, isolated mood, leaving it open to interpretation whether the narrator is experiencing a delusional psychotic break or truly connecting with occult secrets, such as those linked to the Spanish occultism mentioned earlier.
This is just my personal interpretation, but for me, it amplified the psychotic qualities that accompany the occult-themed lyrics, creating a sense of uncertainty about what’s truly happening as you listen to the album. –Dave Wolff
Lineup:
Ebola: Vocals, guitar, bass
Guayota: Drums
Track list:
1. Atlantico Caos
2. Guadana Alzada
3. La Muerte Masturbada
4. Sonambulo Profanador
5. Satan Autista
6. Panteon Mental
7. Sangre De Deceso
8. Karma Invertido
9. Nobrac Orup
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