Felt through the knocking pulse of the neck the leaden gravitas of one’s position at the edge of Apollyon’s realm calls the throat into twisted-down flesh, an instinctive cacophony which brings slow debridement of hubris in forced descent. A fractionation event in three movements of dissociation and negation in view of catastrophic ruination New Zealand/Germany-based quartet VERBERIS seeks what wisdom lies below after grasping for the luminance of the noumenon above. ‘The Apophatic Wilderness‘ is a refinement as much as it is a new axis to bend their surrealistic forms against as if iron, a black/death metal experience made no less punishing for its modulation toward sombre and sleekened streaming consciousness. With great emphasis on atmospheric narration amidst its greater slow-burning, psyche draining scramble down the cliffs of the realm of the dead this masterful album manages a diabolical, Faustian level of taxation which rewards the patient and attentive mind’s engagement with a highest-yet standard applied.

Verberis now reach the ten year milestone beyond their first demo tape having defined the spectrum of the self in varietal but always distinct munitions between two full-lengths and a crucial mLP in between. A history which’d been detailed and reminisced as I approached their second LP (‘Adumbration of the Veiled Logos‘, 2022) with great admiration. Upon review the enriched production values and increasingly unique approach of guitarist D.A. alongside long standing key members of Heresiarch and Ulcerate created a monstrous, exciting listening experience which’d end up at #5 on my Top 100 Albums of the Year for 2022 by way of substantive meaning attached to the thrill of their scaled-up craft. It was a peaking moment for a band I’d followed intently since their first demo tape though there was no expectation of momentum fast and inspired enough that’d yield another full-length less than two years later. Or, on my end I was so wrapped up in that album and its searching soul for most of that year that I’d not spent any time considering where they’d go with it next.

Though the methods of engineering haven’t drastically changed since the previous album’s recording some deeper nuance is made available from analog recording methods via various sites in New Zealand and Germany from what I gather. In this instance these results have allowed for a headier and enriched headspace by way of mixing from Richard Behrens (Samsara Blues Experiment) and I assume mastering once again from Magnus Lindberg. The spacious rhythm section of ‘Adumbration of the Veiled Logos‘ returns with less separation between their resonance, a cold but knowing chemistry which is dramatic with every step and appropriately performative for the morbid, elegiac tone of their movement wherein the result is less focused on the brutality available to prior bass-level frequencies. This makes great sense in terms of serving the differing tone of ‘The Apophatic Wilderness‘ which is sapping in its ominous movements to start as opener “The Emptying of God” drones through, uninterested in the impatient momentum we often find when heading into a black/death metal experience and instead setting a harrowing scene through narrative violence unheard-of since ‘The Furnaces of Palingenesia‘. Though the impact of this opener would’ve been possible within any past production values thus far the important note taken is that this sound design appears intentionally tailored to the intent and the broad scope of Verberis‘ charms.

A cascade of black glass spilling into a maze of declarative horror, searching in depraved wall-scratching stalk the second piece of ‘The Apophatic Wilderness‘ is well chosen as a first glance in preview as “Labyrinthine Privation” further develops the texture of and space occupied by the rhythm section, allowing the prominent and well-sorted lumber of the bass guitar tone to drag and carry its taut-cabled direction throughout. Virtuosic drumming and crookedly-shot atmospheric guitar work generate movements which are frantic in their underlying progressions yet revealed in stages which frequently stir the storming-and-ranting atmosphere of the piece. Verberis are working with their broadest strokes here, admittedly crafting a follow-up to their previous album in spirit but going about it in a loosened, freely formed sensibility which is both exploratory and downcast in its ultimate direction. This second part of the first half is an arc-shot experience, landing its points of impact deeper within the piece (around ~6:32 minutes in) as they depict passage and the challenge beyond entrance of the abysm illustrated. Those final four-or-so minutes of the song might appear as the sort of dervish-like veering one’d expect from a modern somewhat dissonant release on a more cursory listen but this’d been when the minute-by-minute details were arguably just beginning to notably outgrow expectations of riff and rhythm that applies to this band.

The third and final piece, “Arteries Unto Ruin”, is split into two movements and amounts to the whole of Side B with a roughly twenty minute span split into two more-or-less equal halves. “Arteries Unto Ruin I” opens with subtle ‘crank the stereo all the way up’ type psychic charge where heady and glowing cinders of psychedelia are observed in broader-set shapes before becoming stoked into a push-and-pull within the frame out lined by the main rhythm guitar voice. There is a puppet-master role taken on by the leading guitar action on this particular song which would normally be a point of chaos when we loosely consider “dissonant” or abstract patternation but here it is the directorial focus per an open-chiming lead as the drumming soon explodes in myriad directions and a mad wall of voices begins to chime in as our late-in-act tragedian chorus. This is the tumult of the composition to start, a spiraling momentum built and a striding path which fully extends its gait around ~8-9 minutes deep into that first half. The piece succumbs to the voices echoing throughout the lava tube they’ve inhabited to some degree but it does not bisect the song in a definitive way, taking only a second’s pause before breaking into the immediate action of the second part.

The whole of ‘The Apophatic Wilderness‘ appears as a tangent, a different labyrinth beyond the fiery philosophical torsion of ‘Adumbration of the Veiled Logos‘ which leans into that album’s tension and rhythmic tics but eases its hardest hits of death metal for a broadened horizon. This realization might not come quick enough for some, but rather through repeated study of macro-level staging and micro-level arrangement which allows for a very clear and commanding set of pieces which do not fear an extended tangent. The cumulative effect of this indoctrination is akin to a plunge into distortion, a piercing sense of contemplation which arrives as the aperture of the listener is adjusted to a grand scale within atypical narration. The real explosion of this album comes around ~2:17 into “Arteries Unto Ruin II” wherein exciting chord changes signal a nuke of energetic discharge throughout the rest of the closer, or, a very clear and satisfying grand finale per the larger event. This arrives a moment before the collapsing hallucinatory ebb of the piece arrives beyond ~3:19 minutes in wherein the pick scraped whirr of the jet engine they’ve embodied sends the song into a reeling point of levitation. This is in contrast to the poisonous menace and eerie doorway provided by the opener, a freely-formed and final step into this new reality within the underworld.

Beyond increasingly tailored production values and complexly woven pieces of black/death mastery we find Verberis‘ craft perfectly represented by another cover artwork from Ars Alchymiae and an inventive eye-blurring layout from An Open Grave, both of whom have given immediate and well defined character to this album’s aesthetic experience. This helps to extend the physical life of the vessel and makes for some media-turning and neck craning readings of the lyrics in the simple black-and-white but mazelike graphic design. Though precedence was set but the previous album, and I’d go as far as to suggest their earlier work was just as prime in its presentation and musical substance, this third LP is a different shard and all the more compelling for its challenging nox at first glance and impressive for how rife the experience is with brilliancies once I’d combed through every note and word available. Again, we should expect nothing but the highest standard from such an impeccably conceived and obsessively expressed band. A very high recommendation.

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