Cryfemal

Apoteosis Oculta

Oniric Records 2007

Morbid and ghastly are the shrieks conjured through the throat of Ebola as he ushers in a musical nightmare of unholy black metal.  Spain's Cryfemal display a penchant for primitive and brutally fierce black metal that brings to mind Darkthrone and Burzum in some respects.  But these influences are stripped down even further and stink of rot and decay as if they have been entombed within damp crypts and then resurrected from their unquiet slumber.   You can hear the Darkthrone and Burzum influences perfectly mirrored against one another in El Tormento De Cesar el Ahorcado.  Transilvanian Hunger inspired riffs with the prerequisite guitar fuzz burst forth from the tomb on Black Metal II, my favorite track on the album.  Whereas a bone-chilling dissonant riff haunts and freezes all who hear it on Abominable Desolation before giving way to a nostalgic clean acoustic guitar passage which is then mirrored in a harsh wall of sound.  Depressive elements surface throughout the album but are most evident on Apocalpsis and La Meurta Podrida where the guitar cries forth sorrowful chords and notes of sadness.  While Cryfemal wears its Nordic influences on its sleeve, Ebola cakes it all with layers of dry dust from the catacombs beneath Spanish cathedrals adding a distinctly individual touch to his style.  The drumming on this album is insanely tinny and the cymbals hiss over much of the dissonant guitar riffs.  Ebola's vocals are a horrendously tortured affair which renders them unique within the underground scene.  Graveyard black metal with a force of belief and an undead morbidity is what comprises Cryfemal's fourth full length album and it manages to fill me with fright and churns the darkness within my heart.