Artist: Spirit Of Impurity
Country: USA
Label: Death’s Radiance / Perverse Homage
Formats: Demo CDR
Year: 2025
‘Occluding The Gates Of Heaven’ is the debut recording of a new band that goes by the name of Spirit Of Impurity. Other than that, Apart from that, not much is known about this band; even how the physical release of this demo came about is not entirely clear. It seems to be some kind of collaboration between the labels Death’s Radiance and Perverse Homage, but it is unclear who was responsible for which part. Whatever the case, the music more than makes up for any confusion.
When such labels as Death’s Radiance and Perverse Homage are involved, you more or less know what to expect: Black Metal of the rougher and noisy kind. And that is quite literally the case here. Yet, while especially Perverse Homage has been a vital actor in the whole Raw/Lo-Fi Black Metal resurgence that started almost a decade ago, Spirit Of Impurity is not the most typical band on the label’s roster.
Definitely nothing on ‘Occluding The Gates Of Heaven’ is remotely clean or polished, yet it does not sound like, say, Sanguine Relic at all. In fact, Spirit Of Impurity could very well be Perverse Homage’s most regressive band ever. In just over seven minutes we are being served with four tracks that are evidently based on those über cult Hellhammer demo recordings. The buzzing guitars, the reverb and the primitive pummelling: it is all there. As if these are some lost 1999 rehearsal tracks from Apocalyptic Raids (the Brazilian band).
It might be all rather short, with one track that, at just three seconds long, even seems to be a subtle nod to Napalm Death, but ‘Occluding The Gates Of Heaven’ is definitely sweet. Too short for a cassette tape perhaps? I don’t think so. But that is the only downside of this first demo, the labels decided to release this on a CDR, the most inferior of all formats. Buh!
