Review: “The Broken Seal” by LVCIFYRE

When LVCIFYRE made their way into Milan’s SPVN Studio in early 2020, they had no idea how much the landscape of the World around them would be changing. So as the old order drew its final gasping breaths, the duo ventured deep into their tormented souls to find a smothering slab of audible darkness to usher in the dawn of the new age. Shrouded in a cloak of mystery, “The Broken Seal” is a collection of tales of sorcery and witchcraft from the bowels of the ancient European Underworld, of myth and of legend, retold with the signature sound of LVCIFYRE and adorned by cover art depicting a serpent like Medusa by Daniele Valeriani…

…the sense that something wicked this way comes is short lived as “God Await Us” bursts into flame like a living sacrifice to the Gods in Blackened Death Metal form with a thunderous kit performance from Menthor and demonic vocals from multi instrumentalist T. Kaos, a man possessed by a darkness of swirling malevolence. Using the whammy bar to create banshee esq wails the band obey all the rules in their creation of this Frankenstein’s Monster, charging through each cut like a battering ram through the castle gates before igniting the flames of destruction and gorging on the blood of their victims. An atmosphere of pure fury and vicious intent accompanies each oppressive restless journey into the bowels of sonic obliteration and the fact that the album was seven years in the making is not lost on the listener. Fear not however, as nothing sounds aged or dated in any way, shape or form as the manic verses plague your mind with a bludgeoning snarling roar and the violent and hypnotic riffage carries you on your pilgrimage to Valhalla. There is a flare for the theatrical within this beast, the title track echoing out moments of that before the sinister and brooding introduction to “The Wolf of the Great Dark” provides an almost cinematic quality that can not be questioned. It provides a depth that is often associated with Black Metal, as are the plethora of gargantuan blast beats that accompany this stand out moment of dark glory, so much so that you can feel the breath of the Wolf at your neck, it’s razor sharp teeth inches away from snatching you up like a rag doll and consuming your corpse. There will be nothing left to rot, the bones will be left clean. The first solo of “Blood of Az” sounds like claws scratching against the strings during an album that is predominantly riff based before the second leaps out as an off kilter monstrosity that belongs in a Robert Rodriguez movie but in “Black Mass” they have saved the ugliest, most rotten piece of flesh until last. A rampaging tirade with a whirlwind of percussive battery and razor wire riffage, it’s a calling from the fires of hell that gives this sonic fusion of musical Worlds a lasting moment of pure evil before if fades away into the darkness of the abyss of the mind [7.5/10]

Track listing

1. Gods Await Us
2. Tribe of Khem
3. Black Beneath the Sun
4. Headless Rite
5. The Broken Seal
6. The Wolf of the Great Dark
7. The First Archon
8. Blood of Az
9. Black Mass

The Broken Seal” by LVCIFYRE is out 10th September 2021 via Dark Descent Records / Norma Evangelium Diaboli and available for pre-order over at bandcamp.

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