Today, Iron Bonehead Productions sets August 10th as the international release date for a special mini-album from Ill Omen, The Grande Usurper, on CD and 12″ vinyl formats.
A prolific force within the Australian black metal underground, Ill Omen has built a canon of enviably massive proportions – and not just “massive” in size, but rather in the heights/depths to which mainman IV aims. Much like he has in his death metal-oriented vehicle Temple Nightside, IV scours the murk with single-minded intent, but with Ill Omen, he pursues a vision of black metal that’s ceremonial and sinuous, often slowly drifting like fog lingering across an empty grave. Such was the case with 2016’s massive Æ.Thy.Rift – arguably, IV’s perfection of slo-mo blackdoom – and here, he returns with his first recording since that critically acclaimed third album.
And yet, The Grande Usurper is a grand break from the gooey, stretched-out expanses of Æ.Thy.Rift. No less murky, instead, IV sends the listener on a wild ride through the most bestial recesses of the characteristic Ill Omen sound. Across its four-song/25-minute runtime, The Grande Usurper roils and revels among the filth, pulsing with barely contained rage, as mind-melting solos yawn slowly up from the crypt, invoking that same sense of delirium as Æ.Thy.Rift but faster. Altogether, it’s a record that consolidates all the gnarled ‘n’ gnarling weapons within the Ill Omen arsenal, but wields them in obscene and horrifyingly new ways. Hideous energy, slipstreaming songwriting, coffin-bound atmosphere crushed: here is revealed The Grande Usurper.
The first track to be revealed from The Grande Usurper is “The Ruinous Drear,” and it can be heard HERE.
Cover and tracklisting are as follows:
Tracklisting for Ill Omen’s The Grande Usurper
1. The Ruinous Drear
2. Sentenced Suffering
3. An Eld Living Darkness
4. A Thousand Yawning Graves
MORE INFO:
www.illomenvoid.bandcamp.com
