Premiere: Unholy Baptism – ‘…These Scars Are Wounds Unhealed’
Should you be lacking on new releases on this fine Tuesday, despite being pummeled with them left and right only hours ago – we’ve got some unrelenting, unrepentant, US black metal for you.
Despite it’s title, Volume I: the Bonds of Servitude is actually Unholy Baptism’s sophomore full-length, and as such sees the band improve on virtually every front. Having grown from a simple guitars-and-drum project to a gig-ready full line-up with the goal of blending grim, ice cold tones of Norway’s second wave classics with a sound more modern. After ceasing all live activities to focus solely on studio work, Unholy Baptism has ditched the most obvious and tiresome hymns to Satan to focus on something more real. The darkness present on The Bonds of Servitude comes not from the celebration of the mythic, nor from reversing the center of man’s spiritual life – it comes from the exploration of the human condition and the effect Godhood, or the “inconceivable power of the gods deep within the farthest reaches of the universe” has on it. Not themes entirely unexplored in metal, but ones that black metal especially could stand to peruse more often instead of onanating to 12-year olds’ fantasies of evil.
The song at hand today, “…These Scars Are Wounds Unhealed” represents the album’s midpoint point when it comes to style, largely built on the cold riffage the second wave became best known for, but, for a large portion of its duration, focusing on a contemplating, almost meditative mood consistent with the protagonists struggle, as he attempts to come to terms with the world’s emptiness and the loneliness of an existence without rhyme or reason, without a creator or purpose. There are moments of passionate fire, more active riffing, as well though as the protagonist wrenches free from the shackles that have bound him and journeys deep within, only to find that the cost of comprehension, and any perceived freedom, is torment…and its everlasting scars.
Pre-order Unholy Baptism‘s Volume I: The Bonds Of Servitude ready for its October 5th release through the links below.
