Artist: Plegaria Maldita
Country: Costa Rica
Label: Zombi Danz Records
Formats: Demo Tape
Year: 2024
Although I missed the actual release date of this demo, most sources date it from 2024, but it does not seem to have surfaced until around the spring months of 2025. But, whether it was just recently released or a few months prior, it doesn’t really matter, because the music on this first demo tape by Plegaria Maldita, a mysterious one-man group from Costa Rica, sounds like it could have very well been recorded as much as 35 years ago. As often is the case when Zombi Danz Records is involved, we are dealing with arcane and occult Black Metal that breathes the mystifying atmosphere of the obscure bands from the late 80’s and early 90’s.
Not much is known about this band, nor did it garner much reactions across the internet (so far), but the few that responded were unanimously baffled by the sheer authenticity of ‘Necromántica Hechicería Negra’. Internet increasingly is a place of people who comment “album of the year” on basically everything, yet this time the common denominator in the reactions were quite easy to agree upon: Plegaria Maldita expertly blends the best of bands like Lemegethon, Impurity, Nebiros, Mystifier, Mysteries, Varathron, Xantotol and Samael. That means we are served with humming and eerie keyboards, prominent tinny drums, reverbed vocals and an overall sinister production. Total non-trendy and total regressive Black Metal that evolved more around atmosphere than anything else. The music sounds pure and impulsive, clearly not over-rehearsed and recorded in a spontaneous way, allowing the music to retain its true spirit.
Whether Plegoria, the man behind the band, has any experience in previous bands or not remains unknown, but regardless of what he’s been doing prior Plegoria Maldita, he’s a very talented guy. That’s not only evidenced by his outstanding sense for suspenseful song writing, but even more so by his ability of mimicking the exact same atmosphere of those genre defining demos and EP’s from the glory days of non-Scandinavian Black Metal. ‘Necromántica Hechicería Negra’ is truly a magnificent piece of Black Metal honouring the years gone by, showing that this sort of music is still easily able to captivate over three decades later. With that in mind, it is not at all relevant whether this demo tape was released in 2025 or a few months earlier.
