Artist: Nigromancia
Country: Chile
Label: Black Legions Records / Rawforce Productions / Sacred Tomb Records
Formats: CD EP
Year: 2023
On the very last day of 2023 Chilean Nigromancia releases their second EP, ‘Vortex Of Existence’. It follows up the in 2021 released ‘Hidden Rituals’ and contains three new songs as well as three covers that were recorded during a rehearsal sessions somewhere last year. The choice of bands to cover, God Macabre, Entombed and Pestilence can not only considered some decent and cultured picks, it also marks the change of musical course the band took with this new EP.
On ‘Hidden Rituals’ the band had a strong and almost trademarked Old School Death/Thrash Metal sound, which worked pretty well and resulted in a fairly decent EP but at the same time didn’t end up being all that enervating. While the band took a different formula for ‘Vortex Of Existence’, they more or less traded the one thing for the other in terms of originality. Especially the first two tracks, the title track and ‘Torture’, do sound as rather interchangeable Death Metal done the Old School way. Some very light touches of Thrash Metal remained and it also has a dark atmosphere, but altogether it all is really little original. But, that in itself is not a problem if everything is executed well. And that certainly is the case. Nigromancia definitely knows their craft and on the third original track, ‘Last Breath’ they seem to have struck something that really sounds a bit distinctive. That particular song is heavily laced with Heavy Metal leads and a good rocking vibe.
As already mentioned, as a bonus Nigromancia added three cover tracks. They are playing those classic tunes with a lot of respect to the original, but that also leads to just merely listening to the songs done by a different band. That raises the question of the necessity of adding them to this EP in the first place, to me this feels a bit pointless. Positive thing though, is that for a rehearsal session these tracks are really well recorded.
Wrapping things up one could say that if ‘Vortex Of Existence’ has proven anything, than it is that Nigromancia has taken a different musical turn and that they are capable of forging some interesting songs, as shown with ‘Last Breath’. For me personally I hope that this particular song is actually the direction the band will be heading with their follow-up releases.
