If you dig deep enough, there are about as many interpretations of black metal as there are black metal bands. Regardless of the details, at its core, black metal is about conflict. Man vs nature, man vs man, man vs self. The “versus” is the key here. Regardless of basis, be it spirituality, politics, inner turmoil or external antagonism, it’s friction that ignites the flames of the Opposer like flint to steel.
Yet amongst all the death, life is found in the fluid guitar work. It intertwines within the bones of the bass and drums like roots into the chest of a decaying corpse, sapping up the nutrients of the rotting tissue. The excited blasts at the beginning break down into a groove-laden, thick-as-lividity doom atmosphere as the molecules of the song bleed for a higher purpose. It’s one hell of a way to close a record.
Petrified Against The Emanation is available via Sentient Ruin (LP/tape/digital) and Total Death Records (CD).