Artist: Eerified Catacomb / Gnawed Chrisom
Country: Canada / Andorra
Label: Under The Dark Soil
Formats: Split Tape
Year: 2025
Although I’ve seen the name of Gnawed Chrisom before, I never had the opportunity to check this project out musically. But what better way to start than with a split tape with Eerified Catacomb, undeniably one of the best in contemporary Raw/Lo-Fi Black Metal. This tape is presented by one of Britain’s purveyors of all things foul, Under The Dark Soil, a label that is a perfect way to help you further explore the realm of raw and underground Black Metal.
First up is Eerified Catacomb, a band (or project, if you prefer) that wears its musical inspiration proudly on its sleeve. Although Forbidden Citadel Of Spirits continues to live on in the spirit of Carved Cross and some of Mathew Nicholls’ other bands, I always felt that Eerified Catacomb captured the soul of Forbidden Citadel Of Spirits best. Perhaps not too surprising, since ‘Eerified Catacombs’ is also the name of an obscure (and unreleased?) demo by Forbidden Citadel Of Spirits, which later also appeared on the ‘Collection I’ double LP in 2016. The musical similarities may be obvious, it is mainly the atmosphere and overall ambiance of the music that strikes the most with basically all of Eerified Catacomb’s previously released material. And that, frankly, is even more the case with these four new tracks. Thoroughly doomy and sinister in character, they are amongst the project’s most compelling tracks so far. Their sluggish pace and characteristic crude production go so well together that the resulting conjuring cadence drags you fully into the depths of the compositions. Eerified Catacomb expertly shows how beautiful Raw and Lo-Fi Black Metal can be without using any unnecessary bells and whistles. Bareboned and stripped down, but with a good use of synths makes it brimming with atmosphere. Truly one of the best bands in the field.
The other half of the split is for Andorra’s Gnawed Chrisom, a project that I should’ve checked before. Compared to Eerified Catacomb this one-man operation definitely is a step further down the spiral of rawness and crudity, so most likely even more so considered “acquired taste”. Although I saw Martin Löcker, the man behind the music, comment that the whole thing should’ve sounded slightly clearer and that the digital rip available on YouTube might have caused things to sound even more muddy, it is not something that I find particularly distracting. For sure, it is raw and it is lo-fi, but it actually feels like it adds to the overall atmosphere and in fact feels rather close to many of the Altare Productions releases in this particular niche genre. The repetitiveness and the grainy guitar sound as well as the basement production might not be everyone’s cup of tea. Yet if you allow the music to sink in properly, you’ll hear there is a lot going that in fact mirrors much of what Löcker usually mentions as his main influence: Nächtlich and, not all too surprising, Eerified Catacomb. Since I am still waiting for my copy of the split tape to arrive, I can’t verify Löcker’s claim whether or not the actual release sounds a bit clearer. For me that’s not even really necessary, what I have heard now more than meets my approval and I have become curious to what else I have missed from Gnawing Chrisom.
