True black metallers Tenebrae In Perpetuum have shown intriguing signs of personality on recent releases, moving away from the purist style of their early work towards something more brittle and abstract, especially on most recent album, 2019's Anorexia Obscura. The Italian duo have been consistent in their invoking of something deeper and darker beyond the upfront blackened formula and there's a genuinely unsettling atmosphere to the creepy screeching and percussion of intro Preludium here, soon turning to the jangling ominousness of first track proper Carmen ad Noctem.

As much as the band's vocals are still despairing, manic screams and effective enough in their own right, the instruments themselves remain the focus here with a dementedly infectious riff pattern atop the crawling, crushing drums. The way that the track fades out to the same haunting ambience as it began with is just one clever little detail among many. You could recall various touchstones to contrast this to; Charles, our previous comrade who has long since left the good halls of MetalReviews, compared the band to Horna, yet the likes of Occhio Ardente Dio del Caos have something of the Wolfs Lair Abyss era of Mayhem to them, less brutal and clattering yet more esoteric and thoughtful than the Norwegian legends.

It's certainly no less impactful, as the breakdown before even more maddened screams and near symphonic riffs resume their galloping pace. And the quality levels are kept high across the album, the touch of sadistic groove and invocatory clean singing on Mors Triumphans form a nice step sideways, as does the almost avant-garde trilling of the riffs on the following Un Angelo Nero. It's all hypnotic, especially the latter with some epic choirs added for emphasis, and the highlights seem endless, particularly the way that the ensuing aggressiveness of Inverno è Stato rushes at you relentlessly before the track breaks down into something almost progressive in the second half.

The closing nine-minute title track is, as expected, something of a stretched-out version of the album, a slower pace and more ponderous take on the riffs and vocal excursions thus far, particularly the clean singing. And although it does allow for some bursts of speed and more touches of prog, particularly in some of the rolling drum patterns, and is just as effective as the rest of the songs, it feels like a cap on an already great album rather than doing anything especially new itself. Of course, this is black metal, it doesn't need to be new; yet Tenebrae in Perpetuum show that you can use the genre's essential building blocks to fashion something impressive that feels fresh even in 2025. Another must-hear effort from the Italians for necronauts, let's hope their sporadic release schedule increases in the coming years. Beautiful and evocative cover art, too!