Everything in Australia is trying to kill you… even the music.

Don’t believe me? Just look at the list: Great whites, cone snails, Stargazer, syphilis-riddled koalas, Sewercide, the platypus… it’s a seemingly endless list of vicious predators and cuddly things as dangerous as they are adorable.

Slotting right into this murderers’ row are newcomers Somnium Nox. You may have laughed at some of the animals listed above, but I assure they were selected for a very good reason and that Somnium Nox have more in common with them than you realize. “Soliloquy of Lament,” the opening track of their debut album Terra Inanis, isn’t the immediate threat that a great white is. I’d dare say it’s most like the cone snail. The song, like the snail, is unassuming at first glance. The track opens with a beautiful acoustic guitar that belies a sinister intent and eventually gives way to the ominous hum of a didgeridoo (!!!). Much like the murderous snail the song takes its time, but when it stings you damn well know it.

After a brief and devastating initial sting of distortion, the track slips you into a muscular paralysis, clean guitars chiming hypnotically and repetitiously. It’s gorgeous and calming, but truly only a setup for the pain and fury to be unleashed. The final three minutes of “Soliloquy” rage unlike any other moment of the track, the guitars and drums blistering your nerves. It only lets up long enough to let you know that the end is near and then, well, the end.

The irony of the cone snail sting is that buried within all of the venom are healing agents that can be used as painkillers. That’s certainly not unlike black metal at all, is it?

Somnium Nox’s Terra Inanis is out on May 15th via Transcending Obscurity. You can check out the rest of the album on their Bandcamp page and keep up with the band at their Facebook.