Infernüs – Live At Invicta Requiem Mass I – 12″LP

Black Metal

For the last two decades, Portuguese Black Metal have been carving its unhallowed dagger in the heart of the Underground with a myriad of entities devoted to the darkest, most ignominious edges of such Sacred Art. One of the most emblematic and infamous hordes spawned from that cluster of void were satanic mercenaries Infernüs. Handling its heinous path for almost 20 years, the group have summoned an array of demos dating back to the early 2000s, vicious onslaughts that hatched a cult status to the band and left a trail of chaos and destruction in the cauldron of the Underground of said times.

After a last 2007 recording and a series of memorable live rites, Infernüs vanished towards an unfathomable slumber, a silence which left a cloud of uncertainty on the minds of devotees of the group’s malignant fire and one which in 2016 ceased to persist after an astounding return, on a special occasion.

Emerging from the infernal pits of Hell, Infernüs engraved its trail of blood and putrid flesh at the Invicta Requiem Mass I, a distinct ritual with fellow Portuguese nefarious ensemble Mons Veneris. Recorded for posterity, the ceremony cast on a bleak October night in 2016 was a memorable primeval assault which presented the band in full strength with its imperial blast of madness and diabolical fervor for delight of a pack of rabid adherents under the spell of its infernal hounds. During the 45-minute strike, the Portuguese titans have gathered a roast of new anthems of satanic fanaticism and dreadful hymns from the dark past that painted the walls in blood and brought forth the fire and death worship of pure unprecedented sacrilegious might. The blast of every expelled word endorsed a frenzy of devilish and chaotic possession from the blazing crowd, a reaction and assent that attested the charisma of the arrangements, combined with a rhythmic display of power and skill, the dynamic backbone to such psalms’ strain and potent edge and one which is here captured with outright power and vibrancy. The ungodly hymn Cristo em Chamas stands as a highlight of an infernal performance and evening of boundless, blasphemous Black Metal, a profane sermon attesting the strength and craft of the Portuguese scenery and one of its most charismatic forces.

Released on a joint conspiracy between Harvest of Death and Purodium Rekords on a 12” LP edition, limited to 300 copies (100 white vinyl, 200 black vinyl), Live at Requiem Mass I stands as an uncanny testament to the revenge of the bloodlust behemoth Infernüs, a night of absolute worship to the Black Arts, carved for the next thousand years of darkness and ruin.