Cvinger are a Slovakian black metal band and this is their third album.
It’s been ten years since Cvinger’s debut EP Monastery of Fallen, so now seems like a good time to see what they’re up to on their third album. With a promo blurb that mentions bands like 1349, Marduk, Mayhem, Gorgoroth, and Morbid Angel, you have a pretty good starting point for Cvinger’s hostile, yet mood-rich assault.
Cvinger’s black metal is played with intensity and pulsating vigour, while also benefiting from death metal influences that add a layer of belligerent might and esoteric muscle. Additionally you’ll also hear some folk/occult elements here and there, which add atmosphere to the engaging music when they are used, (a track like The Winter Night of the Funeral Pyres concentrates some of these folk-esque influences together, while closing song Chants and Canticle does similar for the more occult ones). Doctrines by the Figures of Črnobog may be fast and brutal in many places, but it’s certainly not exclusively so.
The well-written music is black metal by way of a few different influences, and features some engagingly non-standard riffs that are wider-ranging than you might expect – the Morbid Angel reference above is well-applied, for example. Delivered in a blackened framework that’s both expansive and narrow, the music expands with atmospheric heft, while constricting with focused intent. This allows Cvinger to produce music that combines its various ingredients into a holistic black metal package that’s well-rounded, despite its single-minded intensity. This shouldn’t imply that Doctrines by the Figures of Črnobog is one-dimensional though, as although it’s merciless in its prosecution of its infernal agenda, it has a well-developed personality within this.
Many of the riffs are hooks in their own right, and the production is surprisingly warm, organic, and welcoming. Doctrines by the Figures of Črnobog is an album to grow into over time, one that makes good use of the oft-neglected bass, and offers a full and immersive package for connoisseurs of black metal darkness.
Highly recommended for explorers of the arcane and occult blackened underground.
Favourite Track: Possibly Blood Catharsis and the Mantra of Depravity, as it has a pulsing malevolence that almost playful in its lethality.
Wonderbox Metal 