Iron Bonehead Productions announces November 22nd as the international release date for Nigrum’s highly anticipated second album, Blood Worship Extremism, on CD and vinyl LP formats.
In 2015, Nigrum was born from fire, from snake-infested tunnels and ravenous worship of death – there, where ancient stones are inspirited by bone-breaking and incessant ecstatic dances. From the mists of the central Mexican highlands and the pyramid temples of Quetzalcoatl that lie there came a turbid and sinuous path that took shape in the form of black metal.
After the first years of this journey, marked by hard strife constant changes, the cutting obsidian breeze of the Serpent brought Nigrum to Scandinavian shores. After laying the past to rest, Nigrum established themselves in the south of Sweden. They began with the recording of a three-track demo named Cremer Igne in 2020, which was released later that year. As that year was turning to an end, the band had its first live appearances in Sweden, Denmark, and Germany in its shifted shape after years of silence. The spiritual and creative processes that guided Nigrum culminated in, and were crowned by, the recording of their debut album. Titled Elevenfold Tail, this momentous birth truly announced the band’s arrival.
Still, deeper and darker energies lurked within, and so it comes to pass that Nigrum now unveil Blood Worship Extremism. Aptly titled, Blood Worship Extremism takes nearly every element of its full-length predecessor and intensifies ‚em to an uncomfortable degree. Nigrum’s attack is still clear and cutting in its cunning, but those hideous energies that always threaten to bubble over into hysteria are given free(r) reign across LP#2. On the surface, Blood Worship Extremism almost seems regressive by comparison. For one, the recording is rougher and rawer, exuding an authentically vintage sound circa 1998 demo tapes; lurk longer, and one will find that this soundfield ably benefits the band’s skills, as each instrument (the bass GUITAR, in particular) dazzles with devilish flourish. The songwriting, in kind, goes directly for the throat – immediately, unflinchingly – and at times overwhelms with its lack of decorum; lurk longer still, and that one will witness wholly organic atmospheric touches that waft upwards / downwards from Nigrum’s cauldron without sacrificing any of that searing intensity. Even with all that intensity, cobwebbed melody continues to play a crucial part on their compass, which points to both North and South: no trendiness in either direction.
Elevenfold Tail may’ve surprised with its strike of the ritual dagger, but now Nigrum arrive unadorned and equally unannounced, that dagger already placed decisively in your hand. Here, Blood Worship Extremism begins…