Spanish quintet Velo Misere’s first two releases—Compendio de Trágicos Presagios (2017) and Genealogía del Eterno Desasosiego (2018), collected on Retrospectiva de la Fatalidad in 2019 by (now seemingly defunct?) Death Kvlt Productions—immediately cemented them as eminent figureheads with regard to both of contemporary black metal’s often paradoxical primary objectives: paying tribute to past classics and breaking new ground. Especially on their spectacular new LP Monomanía del Inexorable Vacío, the band has finetuned an infectious combination of murky lo-fi production and stylistic dexterity that firmly plants feet (hooves) in both new and old; the blurring blasts and painterly tremolo riff washes echo widely (and criminally) neglected Madrid forebears Primigenium, while rawer, more desperate shrieks and the dark, swollen undercurrent of the void point toward much more recent work put out by labels like Amor Fati and Debemur Morti. The backbone of this record is the masterful tension-and-release movements harnessed by drummer “G.”—hypnotic hi-hats on “Ente de Muerte,” organic oscillations between propulsive double-bass gallop and exhilarating halftime sludge on “Quietud,” cascading tom fills that sound like majestic cosmic-staircase descents on “El Devenir”—all of it unifying an unhinged nocturnal chaos that pitches, pirouettes, and pummels with equal measure. To me this feels somewhat more accessible than the Retrospectiva, but no less gloriously enshrouding. See you in the shadows.
Noise Not Music 