The work of one Formless, SAPIENTIA DIABOLI are an American black metal band who’ve unleashed a steady stream of short-length recordings since their formation in 2021. They’ve worked with such cult labels as Ixiol Productions and Snow Wolf Records, and now make a blood pact with RABAUW for their first full-length. Tellingly titled I Ov the Darkness, SAPIENTIA DIABOLI’s debut album is a violent vortex of malodorous mysticism and teeth-gnashing tension.
At times, its slipstreaming surge is suffocating beyond belief – riffs slash and swirl from literally every direction, with the forward propulsion pushing that oppression to feverish levels – but just as often does the serpentine songwriting impact a paradoxically ethereal effect. Astute listeners will be cognizant of such a disconnect from the esteemed likes of Nightbringer, Hetroertzen, and progenitors Thorns, but SAPIENTA DIABOLI’s exercise of such here takes on a stranger aspect: cruelly mechanized and impossibly organic in equal measure, a searing symbiosis of cold, dead matter and human, all too fucking human. In that sense, we can also draw parallels to unorthodox outliers like Troll’s Neo-Satanic Supremacy or the cult Tsatthogua – but whatever manner you approach SAPIENTIA DIABOLI, I Ov the Darkness remains a stultifying work and an imposing springboard for the band’s next recordings.
Genre(s) | Black Metal, Raw Black Metal |
Label | Rabauw |
Catalogue No. | RIF041 |
Release Date | November 1st, 2024 |
Country | USA |
A1. From The Void I Intone
A2. Towers In The Moonlight
A3. When Skies Are Riven
A4. In The Halls Of The Shadow Choir
B1. Blessed Be The Fire
B2. Holder Of The Sixth Key
B3. The Dreaded One