Band: Infestus
Title: Ex/Ist
Label: Debemur Morti Productions
Distribution: Sure Shot Worx / Soulfood
Release date: May 16th 2011
Review: CD

One-man project Infestus’ third album is another grandiose piece of eeriness in its bleakest sense. Seven compositions with an average duration of more than seven minutes each, with a sound as cold as the deepest Winter, as grim as the Nordic shores, as hypnotic as the most erotising self-mutilating trip through the most abyssal levels of mind. Yet seen from a misanthropic point of view, where life, or at least human life, is a stupid form of futility and emptiness.
This is the kind of Black Metal that defines Underground in all its glory, dwelling into spheres of Old Times (late eighties / early nineties) and Future Eras (referring to the Prophecy-comparable Post-influences). Lots of tempo-variations, melancholic or emotive melodies versus pieces filled with tormenting fury and venomous anger, grimy screams and a pounding rhythm section, in combination with additional acoustics and industrial soundscapes, as well as a desolate, mourn-laden sound, Ex/Ist oppresses and suppresses with supremacy again!
Mastered by Tore Stjerna at Necromorbus (Vanmakt, Merrimack, Sol Axis, Desultory, Die Hard etc.).

86/100

Ivan Tibos.