This is the fourth album from UK black metallers Gråt Strigoi.
Despite being four albums deep into their career, I’ve never heard of Gråt Strigoi before the wonderful Fiadh Productions put them on my radar. It’s seriously been my loss, as this stuff is so far up my alley it hurts. The Prophetic Silence contains 56 minutes of black metal that’s so good you should just stop reading this now and go and listen to it.
There are some bands that you know, as soon as you first hear them, that there’s something special going on. Gråt Strigoi are definitely one such band. It’s black metal that’s violent and intense, but has different facets to it, and is completely honed to a lethal killing point throughout. What’s not to like? For a rough starting point for the sound of The Prophetic Silence, think of a mix of select parts of Bell Witch, Calligram, Forgotten Tomb, Hexis, Mizmor, Panopticon, The Sun’s Journey Through the Night, Thou, Thy Light, Usnea, and Wolves in the Throne Room.
Gråt Strigoi’s sound is sharp and tight. It’s a modern black metal recipe that blends its expansive sound from a mixture of the modern, depressive, and atmospheric black metal styles, along with touches of dissonant and post-black metal, with a helping of doom, sludge, ambient, noise, and hardcore thrown in for extra flavour. The end result is very tasty and moreish.
The music combines cutting aggression with mood-based darkness. It’s a harsh assault overall, but no matter what the band are doing their mastery of their material is such that it’s always utterly compelling. As a descriptive sample of what to expect on The Prophetic Silence, here is a rough idea – blistering blast beats, introspective reflection, mountains of corrupted doom, ambient/noise workouts, icy melodic splendour, eerie acoustics, and more besides. The vocals are absolutely scathing. They’re screams from the abyss that rise and fall into and out of the darkness with serrated grace. It’s all delivered in a contemporary black metal framework that’s extremely well-crafted and executed.
Well, this has been an unexpected treat. The Prophetic Silence is an immense album that’s one of the most striking and impactful I’ve heard this year. By all rights this album should propel Gråt Strigoi to the upper echelons of the black metal underworld, but I can’t help but feel it will end up wallowing in the darkness, an undiscovered gem. All I can say is don’t let this one pass you by, as it’s a seriously stunning record.
Essential listening.
Wonderbox Metal 