Artist: Cursed Penetrator
Country: Finland
Label: Unpure Records
Format: CD
Year: 2025
After two demos, of which the first one was reissued as part of a split CD with Black Offal Messiah, ‘Invocation’ marks the band’s further deepening of the collaboration with Unpure Records. Niko “Desecrator of Holy Cunt” Thomasson and his yet anonymous accomplice “Priest of Angelsodomy” were able to compile no less than 30 minutes of new material that, quite frankly, doesn’t stray away from what the band has been doing on those previously released recordings.
Even if you weren’t aware of anything that Cursed Penetrator had done before, the band name, pseudonyms and the involvement of Unpure Records might already give away quite a bit of what to expect. And, you will not be in for a surprise at all. Though slightly less raw and chaotic compared to its predecessors, ‘Invocation’ is pretty much still up to everyone’s alley who is still regarding to the old Impaled Nazarene, Beherit, Blasphemy and Sarcófago sort of bands as REAL Black Metal. It is both dark and sinister as well as wild and aggressive.
The Finnish always had a great tradition in the noisy and savage sounding primal Black Metal, Cursed Penetrator is a proud contributor to that scene of old (and new). Not so much with a renewed spirit or vision, but more with an honest donation to the continuation of this genre’s raw and unpolished art of darkness and evil. Especially this album’s slower parts and the growling ambient-like intro, intermezzo and outro add much to the overall atmosphere and harkens back to what Beherit set out to over three decades ago.
As a whole, ‘Invocation’, just like the previous demos, is a true celebration of the true fundamentals of Black Metal. Venom, Bathory and Hellhammer might be the genre’s founding fathers, it is the next generation of bands who truly put the evil into Black Metal and ‘Invocation’ is just a honest and pure album dedicated to exactly that period.
