Spectres amassing for sky-filling rituals, death’s sorcery taking command of distended nature, daimonian imbibe, and the glory which comes beyond a fall from a high place… all points of fantastical misanthropic darkness fueling the imagery at the heart of Athens, Greece-based black metal trio Lunar Spells who’ve returned for a third full-length album, and fifth release in four years, wherein their exploration of ‘old school’ Scandinavian black metal idealism yields an increasing focus on moderately sophisticated strands of melodic rhythm guitar fronted interest. With ‘Sacraments of Necromantical Empires‘ their tribute rolls on, embracing the fluid hum of their melodious traits in full blustering and frothing fancy as these five main pieces create a fuming wall of disenchanted keys and storm-paced classics inspired rhythms. This’ll serve as a recommendation primarily served to those seeking a dark introspective grasp of guitar driven melody beyond all other traits and tendencies.

Lunar Spells formed circa 2020 as a trio directed by guitarist, vocalist and synth player Cryptic who’d been involved in various black and death metal projects since the late 2000’s but seems to have founded this band (along with drummer V.T. and bassist K.C.H.) for the sake of a 90’s inspired black metal sound. Though their inspiration for certain movements are often easily identified in their voice or inspiration Lunar Spells have consistently hopped borders between Scandinavian black metal ideals, perhaps more intently focusing on the morbid lustre of Swedish and Finnish black metal apparent. This means there is no escaping the feeling of facsimilia in their work but the immersed black metal fandom will see this as variation and contribution rather than new idolatry. Though their first full-length was decidedly raw and taken with early 2000’s Finnish black metal revision their work has always been wrathful and underground in its focused affect. Their arrival upon affect the somewhat more crisply realized sound came with their second LP (‘Demise of Heaven‘, 2022) where they’d achieved the level of quality (see: my review) which we can also readily expect and confirm for ‘Sacraments of Necromantical Empires‘ today.

Opener “Eerie Nocturnal Shades” brings more than a twinge of Satanic Warmaster to mind with its opening riff but the main melody, a mid-paced tarantella explored by the rhythm guitars during its extended verses, tends toward the melancholic aspect of Windir sans any heroic lead guitar interest. Opting for a dulcimer-like underpinning for some of the accompanying keyboard work gives these opening moments a specific charm which I’d appreciated quite a bit considering the amount of repetition that’d been pounded out on the long walk there. Each of the five main pieces on ‘Sacraments of Necromantical Empires‘ feature in excess of six minutes and meet the same general high standard presented by the opener, making for a consistent full listen which is enjoyable for its steadiness of voice and intense focus upon melodic black metal rhythms. That said, there are of course superior pieces which spike-strip the trod of their bleak moonlight land, such as the Sargeist-esque forlorn aggression of standout “Necromantical Glorification”, which appears sewn into said sonic landscape as each song thrives in succession of one another while presenting a simple handful of ~4-5 riffs sometimes counting variations as each theme presents a similar composition. The contiguous nature of the listening experience likely comes from a largely uniform modus. In this sense if you’d felt the opener was already on a roll the rest of the full listen will smoke.

If you feel nothing for melodious, skull-filling black metal music and are simply pacing through looking for something unheard-of a band like Lunar Spells will probably read as fodder in ear with a cursory pass-through. If you are a fan, as I am, of this type of black metal you’ll find more than rich atmospheric gusts and variously triumphal and mysterious themes but an unhindered point of focus which may be inherently traditional (read: unoriginal, typical) but milks an auld nightside kicking effect in an extremely honed way. In this sense its brightest flashes of speed and riff hurling movement are familiar in every case but still inspiring for their quality of statement and reasonable performances. The eye of the storm in this regard, or a naturally ear-catching and brain chilling monument built is mid-album standout “Demoniac Chalice”, still appearing in that same main riff voicing to start but eventually letting the bells ring, the chorales seep in, and some Swedish-leaning style compositional rises occur. I’d found this to be one of the more collectively representative pieces on the album and a standout for my own taste. The harder hitting stride of closer “Luciferian Twilight” and the fantasy/dungeon synth outro beyond it do well to define an endpoint and resemble the peak of the full listen though for my own taste this album could’ve used a few more minutes in the fire with at least one more song (or another synth piece) to flesh it into a complete thought.

As a third full-length album from a fairly prolific band playing a familiar style of black metal ‘Sacraments of Necromantical Empires‘ does not surprise so much as it delights as an iteration upon the high point(s) of their previous release, focusing even more intently upon its greatest strengths and delivering a consistent and occasionally rousing melodic black metal experience. Without any real expansion of the rhythm section’s role and no additional technique or expression found in the vocals Lunar Spells don’t stand out in any obvious sort of way ’til the malaise and melody thrusted rhythm guitar work which drives their ship begins to convince. I’d once again classify their work as pleasure listening, a sub-genre specific nice fulfilled to a reasonable standard with plenty of ear-gripping and inspired rhythms generating some serious value. A moderately high recommendation.

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