Artist: Redenção Pelas Chamas
Country: Portugal
Label: Purity Through Fire
Formats: CD
Year: 2025
It’s not really the first time I’ve expressed my not always mild aversion to overly smooth-and-simple or downright interchangeable Black Metal. Some musicians are just cranking out music on an almost daily basis or is even made by people who don’t seem to understand what Black Metal is about. I am not at all about elitism or “gatekeeping”, but Black Metal is supposed to be dirty and mean, not radio-friendly. Not even remotely. There’s a couple of labels that tend to venture just in either the mellow-sort of Black Metal or seem to have love-relationship with a handful of overly prolific musicians. And, unfortunately, there’s labels that are even embracing both. Purity Through Fire is a label that started out pretty promising but hasn’t released much interesting stuff in the last couple of years, most probably the reason why we are hardly reviewing any of this German label’s releases.
Redenção Pelas Chamas, a relatively new band from the ever-fertile Portuguese scene, signed up with Purity Through Fire for the CD release of their debut album. Their debut demo tape was released by Harvest Of Death, a division of Signal Rex, but apparently the band tried to find a label with a slightly larger reach. The question is, however, whether that is the case. But the most important matter is: how is this self-titled first offering?
That first demo, simple called ‘Rehearsal Tape’ from late 2022, had what you might expect: a rather raw sound. Something that I felt fitted the music pretty well. Judging from ‘Redenção Pelas Chamas’ it seems the band really just saw that tape as merely a rehearsal, as they went for a way more smoother approach for their full-length.
On a musical level Redenção Pelas Chamas offers quite an interesting mix of a rather fast kind of Black Metal that is both melodic and with a slight Pagan feel to it. Purity Through Fire claims this is a window to past times and reflects the great works of bands like Sombre Chemin and Bekhira. Well, with a bit of good will I do recognize the ideas behind the music on ‘Redenção Pelas Chamas’, but it is also abundantly clear that these Portuguese are not (yet) at the same level as these Frenchmen. The most prominent resemblance might lie within the melancholic riffing and the use of some Pagan-like melodies as well as the occasional preaching/spoken word-like vocals, ‘Redenção Pelas Chamas’ simply sounds too slick. The lack of that most necessary rough edge, both in the guitars and the overall production makes Redenção Pelas Chamas just not as half as convincing.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s a good few ideas and it is not at all a bad start for the band, but as a whole, the ‘Rehearsal Tape’ had much more of a genuine atmosphere than this debut album. So, although perhaps coincidental, the band has made a somewhat anonymous start on a label that is increasingly losing its distinctive character. Roll up your sleeves and get dirty, guys.
