Mephorash – The Third Woe (Review)

This is the latest EP from Swedish black metallers Mephorash.

This is a brief EP that’s designed to whet appetites for Mephorash’s upcoming new album. It features one new song and one re-recorded one off the band’s 2012 album Chalice of Thagirion.

777: The Third Woe is the new track, and it bodes very well for the band’s new full-length release. Opening to a grand fanfare, harsh vocals shout out over the top of this, before a majestic heaviness erupts from the speakers. Mixing speeds, both slow and fast, this is a majestically sinister piece of occult black metal. The band use melodies well, and I really like the keyboard enhancements that appear here and there. Sophisticated, atmospheric, grand, aggressive – 777: The Third Woe has it all in one form or another. Overall a very solid song that promises good things for the future.

Although I’m familiar with the band’s previous album 1557 – Rites of Nullification, I’m unfortunately unfamiliar with Chalice of Thagirion, which is where the original version of The Odious Gospels is from, so I cannot judge how different/similar it is to the original. What I can say, however, is that it shares similar traits with its newer companion, albeit ones that are forged into different forms and shapes than 777: The Third Woe. The Odious Gospels is a mid-paced monster, lurching and crawling relentlessly forward with a grandiose bearing, despite how obviously corrupted with foul dark magicks it is.

A short release, but a very worthwhile one. Mephorash are well-prepared for the future, it seems.