Location: Lodi, New Jersey
Country: USA
Genre: Black metal
Demo: Beneath a Broken Cross
Format: Digital
Label: Independent
Release date: May 14, 2026
Despite the continuous progress and refinement of black metal, marked by evolving styles and new interpretations, it’s always refreshing to see a band return to the basics and draw inspiration from early Darkthrone, Burzum, Emperor and obscure black metal bands like Belkètre, Countess, Vlad Tepes and Nåstrond.
What’s being referred to the classic sound here is intensely raw, featuring atmosphere-rich guitars evoking a foggy moor you can barely navigate, tremolo picking and bass like bladed weapons, frigid keyboards with airs like the thickening mist obscuring your eyesight, severe, jarring percussion and rasping, grating vocals that scrape at your consciousness.
I've talked extensively about black metal bands taking me back to a time when music was cult without the need to be kvlt or to rely on labels like Kvit to define themselves. When what they composed seemed to be invocations of all things dismal, unlit, and fascinating. When songs were less like traditional songs and more like mediums for channeling mysterious, hidden truths, bringing the secret stuff of mystery, secret depths of the unknown, or an apparition with illicit revelation about the future, into actuality to dispel the mundane.
The rawer and more aged the music sounded, the more it carried those mysteries from obscurity to conjoin with the listener's spiritual inclinations and sense of self. Demonic possession? Or another state of being, one long untouched from deep inside? Maybe a little of both is to be found in “Beneath a Broken Cross,” three demo tracks of songs planned for inclusion on Lord of Horns’ next full length “Cursed by the Horned Moon.”
The tracks released on this preview of the new album are designed to tear open the shroud between reality and an inscrutable supernatural world where the devil himself dwells, waiting to be invited into our world, if even for a brief period of time. Beyond that veil is a universe of delirium, turmoil and hysteria, almost beyond comprehension.
While I listened to these songs I kept thinking of John Carpenter’s Apocalypse Trilogy, especially “Prince of Darkness” and “In the Mouth of Madness.” I kept sensing a transformative vibe emerging from the combination of elements the band blended their sound with. I sensed this most strongly with the blend of atmosphere and a rigid industrial-black metal sound similar to Mysticum and Thorns. Exceptionally forceful, a lot like the dark force unleashed in “Prince of Darkness” and the altered perception of reality shown in “In the Mouth of Madness.”
In typical black metal fashion perceptions are skewed and transposed, and disparate modes of awareness emerge. With the band we journey through exile, carving a new path in desolation, separated from the world and divine grace. We start to see spiritual corruption within that grace, broken crosses suggesting disillusionment with classical religion, rotting decay and pestilence hidden beneath.
We hear invocations to darkness, ancient occult practices leading to transformation, reverence and power. When the devil appears it’s like a distortion, or maybe even a shredding, of the line between illusion and reality. From there comes the inevitable confrontation between good and evil, this time a conflict between institutional power trying to impose spiritual cleansing and a refusal to relinquish the self-awareness achieved through dark rites.
This is symbolized by traditional exorcism rites and demonic hordes, possibly raising the question: which side is the overwhelming evil seeking dominance? Which side emerges triumphant? For the answers, you should experience these tracks for yourself. –Dave Wolff
Track list:
1. Beneath a Broken Cross
2. I Conjured the Devil
3. Exorcism Denied
