Predatory Light – Predatory Light (Review)

This is the debut album from US black metallers Predatory Light.

Featuring members of Mania, Triumvir Foul and Ash Borer, this release comes with high expectations before it even starts. As you can probably guess, those expectations are fulfilled.

Predatory Light play black metal with a serving of doom and a keen melodic edge. These are not the kind of melodies that will keep you up at night humming them, but more the kind that wind their way into your brain while you’re listening to them, burrowing deep and staying there.

The band write their songs with a good sense of the dark aesthetics that are at play in this kind of music. This is a grim, despondent album, but one that doesn’t lack in light or shading; this is down to the twisting melodies and the clean, expansive recording that the songs have.

A relatively low-in-the-mix vocal assault consists of dark screams that pierce the gloom like painful eruptions.

Although I like all aspects of this release, I keep returning to the powerful melodic leads that are thrown around with wild abandon. Some of the best parts are where the blackened doom is in full flow and the leads are dragging the listener down to their exquisite level, revelling in the metallic murk.

Predatory Light have produced a 41 minute album that takes the listener through various moods and feelings, via both fast and slow delivery, emphasising a melodic approach merged with a deeper, darker form of blackness. I, for one, have enjoyed this immensely.

Check this out.