CEMETERY LIGHTS set release date for NUCLEAR WAR NOW! debut album, reveal first tracks

Today, Nuclear War Now! Productions sets September 7th as the international release date for Cemetery Lights‘ highly anticipated debut album, The Underworld, on CD and vinyl LP formats. The cassette tape version will be released earlier, on August 31st.

With its two demo EPs from 2018, Cemetery Lights rightfully gained the attention of the black metal underground for its atavistic approach that melded the sounds of various influences from decades-gone-by to produce an early body of work that somewhat resembled a newly-discovered series of recordings from the vault of Unisound Records. With its thematic focus on a ritual of exorcism from ancient Rome, the first of these demos, Lemuralia, demonstrated that the band not only worshipped the sound of mid ’90s Mediterranean black metal, but also the ancient history and literature of the region that helped set the stage for its birth many centuries before. Within a few months, Cemetery Lights released its second demo, The Church on the Island, which offered a somewhat more expanded glimpse of the full palette of the band’s inspirations and increased anticipation for what its first full-length would bring. Approximately one year later, this debut album is realized with the release of The Underworld on Nuclear War Now!

Composed of eight songs written primarily between 2009 and 2014, one would not necessarily expect The Underworld to take a step significantly beyond the two aforementioned demos, given that the tracks from these were composed and recorded at the same time. Nonetheless, the band’s sole member paid exceptional attention to writing and recording an album that would pay appropriate tribute to the worldwide influence of Greek literature over the past several millennia. Rather than rehashing themes that had already been explored by others previously, the goal was to delve into this mythology in a way that had not yet been done. As such, instead of paying homage to the characters in these narratives, The Underworld seeks to describe the realms that those characters occupied. Thus, the music and lyrics are paired, for example, to boldly proclaim the splendor of Olympos, the dread of Tartaros, and the melancholy of The Fields of Asphodel. This outcome was achieved in great effect through careful study of primary tomes, such as Homer’s The Odyssey and Hesiod’s Works and Days, as well as several other complementary texts.

Another significant way in which The Underworld differs substantially from the preceding demos is with the inclusion of live percussion. Having been a band consisting of a single member since the beginning, it was more convenient to use programmed percussion on the demos. For the album, on the other hand, additional effort was expended to learn how to properly record live drums, which was done along with all other instrumentation in the band’s private studio. The result is one which adds to the dramatic effect of the grandiose songwriting and contrasts sharply with the more sterile sound of programmed percussion.

With its thematic reference to Greece’s classic literature and its musical reverence of the country’s influence in black metal history, The Underworld stands out as a present-day example of an album that is much more than just a collection of songs written and performed in a similar vein, but instead a singular work that represents the ideal confluence of theme and music.

In the meantime, hear the brand-new tracks “Elysium” and “Tartaros” here:

Cover art and tracklisting :

Tracklisting for Cemetery Lights’ The Underworld
1. Erebos
2. Hades
3. Elysium
4. Isles of the Blessed
5. Shores of Akheron
6. Olympos
7. Tartaros
8. Fields of Asphodel


MORE INFO:
www.facebook.com/necrophilosoph

NUCLEAR WAR NOW! to reissue first CEMETERY LIGHTS demo – streaming in full now

On September 21st internationally, Nuclear War Now! Productions will reissue Cemetery Lights’ debut demo, Lemuralia, on cassette tape format.

While it is often true that distinct musical styles are unique to a given location and era in history, occasionally, this axiom is broken by a band that somehow manages to fracture the paradigm and insert itself as a welcomed anachronism in the present day. In this vein, Cemetery Lights, though a native of North American soil, convincingly channels and combines the musical spirits of European metal forefathers such as Mortuary Drape, Samael, and Tiamat, and melds them with the literary traditions and culture of Ancient Rome to create something that is both reverent to the past and equally relevant to the present.

The band’s debut demo, Lemuralia, was first disseminated on cassette in very limited numbers on the ninth of May 2018, to commemorate the advent of the Lemuralia festival, an ancient Roman celebration featuring exorcism rites to banish malicious spirits from the home. A few short months later, Nuclear War Now! saw fit to release Cemetery Lights’ second demo, The Church on the Island. Now, in an effort to make the first recording more widely available, NWN! offers a reissue cassette of Lemuralia for the enjoyment of disciples of the aforementioned traditions.

From the outset of the first track, “Charite’s Revenge,” the most obvious musical influence of Mortuary Drape is palpable in the intro and verse riffs, as the lyrics reference a tale from within the ancient Roman novel Metamorphoses by Apuleius. The ensuing title track is more reminiscent of Samael as it explains an evening ritual for the Lemuralia festival. “Necrophilosoph” continues the story-weaving tendency by recounting a necromancer’s rites at Lake Avernus, an entrance to the underworld as depicted by writers such as Cicero, Virgil, and Hyginus. Lastly, “Accursed Funeral” is a supplication to Dīs Pater, Roman god of the underworld, to take Emperor Nero’s life. These final two tracks, with a slightly unconventional sense of melody, perhaps remind more of early Tiamat than other influences.

Throughout the demo, a malevolent aura is cast, not unlike those that pervade the works of classic Greek black metal. What is perhaps most impressive in this recording is not necessarily its adeptness in reproducing sounds first pioneered by early European ancestors, but more so that it fuses them organically in a way that maintains its cohesiveness as a whole, thus proving that history is indeed capable of mutating and recombining distinct elements from different snapshots in time and place to once again wreak havoc on the present.

In the meantime, Lemuralia is streaming in full HERE

Cover and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Cemetery Lights’ Lemuralia
1. Charite’s Revenge
2. Lemuralia
3. Necrophilosoph
4. Accursed Funeral

MORE INFO:
www.facebook.com/necrophilosph
www.nwnprod.com
www.facebook.com/pages/Nuclear-War-Now-Productions/114864651994141