The coming of the Second Wave of Black Metal in the 90s created the (wrong) idea that the genre must sound as putrid and nasty as the band could play and record, as a way to be ‘true’ (when in reality, it was a manifest of the bands of those days against the hi-fi sonorities used by Death Metal acts, something described as the ‘ugly aesthetics’). But even today, years after Black Metal became popular and things evolved, there are bands that prefer to keep things sounding as crude and unbearable as possible, and the Polish act CULTUM INTERITUM follows such trend on “Sacrum Funeral”, their third full length.

The band worked with Grief on the mixing and mastering of “Sacrum Funeral”, and it bears a crude and moldy outfit similar to those one of the Black Metal Second Wave bands (especially something of GORGOROTH on the days of “Pentagram” and “Antichrist”), with the ‘frying potatoes’ guitar sound and everything else. It can’t work for usual Metal fans, but for Black Metal fans will be a delightful experience. And by the way: the band had Nimerius playing guitars on “V” and “M”, and Grief on the samples on “S” and Drums on “V” and “M”.

Of course such words can cause a little misconception on the minds of the readers, thinking that they’re dealing with a Black Metal act, and it’s not the case. They’re a Black/Death Metal in the Old School sense, drawing influences from SARCÓFAGO, HELLHAMMER and CELTIC FROST and others on this trend, but from Hardcore and from Old School Black Metal as MAYHEM, GORGOROTH, DARKTHRONE and others, with a main focus on the mix between Death/Black Metal instrumental parts (using a simple technical approach) with guttural grunts. And it sounds good, indeed.

Maybe for younger extreme Metal fans the work heard on “Sacrum Funeral” can sound without appeal, but for older ones, the set of songs of “S”, “A”, “C”, “R”, “V”, “M” (yes, the title’s songs are an anagram in the same way BATHORY used on the lyrics of “Dies Irae” and “The Golden Walls of Heaven”) are filled with the same sinister and rusty elements of the past, contrasting bombastic faster moments with funereal and morbid slower tempos, with nasty guitar parts binding with a solid rhythmic work, and grunts fill the spaces. Yes, that’s a good release.

The work of the band is really promising, but “Sacrum Funeral” creates a sensation that CULTUM INTERITUM can be poised for a turn, or in other words, is going to show something great in the future. Let’s wait for it.