### Cult Of Erinyes: A place to call my unknown

#### 24/05/11 || sly

“Drawning its energy from the darkest thoughts of its creators, this new extreme and punitive outfit intends to evolve in the realms of Black Metal while pushing its limits a bit further. Spawned with the intention to distil arstistic audacity into respected traditions, Cult of Erinyes belongs to the forbidden experience, where music is only a symptom of a higher truth. Ritualistic hymns, vicious and twisted vocals, furious rythmics and ambient disgressions are only a few weapons which will make of Cult of Erinyes a band to be reckoned with.”

This lofty paragraph is taken directly from their MySpace, disgressions and all. With a bio like that, Cult of Erinyes make themselves sound pretty darn cool, and doubtless well-deserving of a nice, fat 10.

(But sadly these boastful Brussels black metallers seem to be too absorbed in their “arstistic audacity” to be bothered with spell check. And being the Spelling Nazi that I am, I immediately subtract a whole point for the five offenders.)

The first track lasts nearly 8 minutes, and makes for a rather unsavory opener. It’s lengthy and dull, and about half way through my ears are treated to some grating clear vocals which vaguely remind me of something I hate. After hearing this song for the third time, I sincerely hope I never have to sit through it again. Not a good sign. And ironically, track two requires no words from me due simply to its self-explanatory title: “Insignificant”. Fourteen minutes forty-seven seconds in, and I am not at all convinced. I remove one point.

Luckily, the third song has a little more to offer. Cult of Erinyes exhibit a sound somewhat like a decelerated Antaeus, a bit of Gehenna, and are even Dimmu Borgiresque in the vocals. “Island” offers a glimpse of what could be. These guys may have some sound ideas, and I could see them going somewhere with this. So hooray for them, here’s half a point.

Unfortunately the next track up, “A thousand torments”, throws it all off balance, announcing the complete lack of flow to this album. And I reckon “Permafrost” is meant to bestow upon the elect a sort of transcendental, ethereal experience; the pathway to a higher truth. However, in all its calm, tacky instrumental glory, it is what I imagine the soundtrack would be when the closing credits for Twilight are rolling. The fact that I’ve never seen Twilight and this music still manages to remind me of it prompts me to remove two full points from their would-be score.

By now, I am growing very tired of “A place to call my unknown”. The last four tracks go on and vapidly on; it seems as if even the band are getting bored with the recording. Indeed the last track is so dull that I don’t even notice the album has ended till a minute later. “Oh, it’s over. Cool.”

As I gather my wits and rub my eyes, I try to recall my overall impression.

The musicianship is satisfactory enough. There’s a nice riff here and there. But the ultimate conclusion is that Cult of Erinyes are just pretty good copycats of every other unremarkable elitist black metal band. They don’t succeed in pushing any limits, and they certainly don’t qualify as “new” or “extreme”. This performance of little more than mere mimicry suffers the loss of another point and one half.

They probably have a reasonable chance of success on some level, and they will likely garner a nice little following. After all, there was one slightly memorable track… though at the moment I forget which one it was.

- Information
- Released: 2011
- Label: Les Acteurs de l’Ombre
- Website: Cult of Erinyes MySpace
- Band
- Mastema: vocals
- Corvus: guitar, bass, keyboard
- Baal: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Call No Truce
- 02. Insignificant
- 03. Island
- 04. A Thousand Torments
- 05. Permafrost
- 06. Velvet Oppression
- 07. Black Eyelids
- 08. Thou Art Not
- 09. Last Light Fading