A brutish, charcoal black quintessence splattering from the marbled mouths of newly erected unholy shrines this sophomore full-length album from Brooklyn, New York-based black metal act SPITE finds the artist entrenched in narrative bookending, fleshing further the tribulations of our anti-messiah’s reign within an elaborate hourlong heresy. Snapping fast and with the hard-cut edge of evil thrashing heavy metal ‘The Third Temple‘ leads with sinister guitar work as the primary gnashing force of its experience, reaching for an ambitious twelve-part barrage obsessively detailing unsacred pure black metal events riff-after-riff. For the ‘old school’ but not flatly retrofied mind there is more fire than alienation in this work, a level of charismatic focus that accosts and darkens from its pulpit rather than dissociates. The twanging, increasingly capable intensity of these long-built pieces compliments and extends the range of possibilities opened by the band’s debut, just as a sophomore album should, and to a degree that squares up ideally with the high standards expected upon reappearance.

Spite formed circa 2010 by way of Salpsan (Impure, Horns & Hooves, Stygian Black Hand) and appears to be the longest nurtured solo effort from the fellow a band that focuses on the cacophonic, thrashing lure of late 80’s black metal and the riffs that’d driven it. The artist has long been consistent in stating the intent on simple terms as “true and untainted black metal”. Most hadn’t been aware of the first cassette single, “Desecration Rites” (2013), a homebrewed tape recorded and writ with Malebolge (Horns & Hooves) ’til 2015 or so after Salpsan‘d served as the live drummer for Occultation and Negative Plane and began forming a culture around his Brooklyn-based label and associated side-projects. The Iron Bonehead released ‘Trapped in the Pentagram‘ (2015) 7″ was enough of a mission statement for anyone to’ve caught wind of the thrashing black metal intent of the band but it didn’t fully prepare for the introductory opus that was ‘Antimoshiach‘ (2018) a leap and a bound into an ancient black metal portal built around a theme of inverted apocrypha and of course strong guitar work. Hypnotic and bounding in the way that Funereal Presence were/are, likely for the sake of a shared unholy love of Mortuary Drape‘s black/heavy metal forms alongside the auld Norwegian stuff circa ~1991, that debut LP still resonates today as force of malevolence and traditioned wrath which bears its own rhythmic undercurrent of “black/thrash” and early USBM beyond the clangorous lead-driven scope of its most charismatic pieces. This style continues to develop on this sophomore album.

From what I’ve gathered Spite recorded ‘The Third Temple‘ roughly a year beyond the release of their debut (which’d been recorded in 2016) and has otherwise been in preparation and holding since 2019. With this information we can view this release as a particularly unique capture of the artist’s ambitions beyond the care put into their debut which bears no direct influence from the sagging standards of the first couple of pandemic years, a veritable time capsule which fleshes out the body of their apocryphal telling. The suggestion is that the theme of this album bookends either side of what’d been depicted on ‘Antimoshiach‘, the arrival of the Anti-messiah upon Earth and splits this narrative into three temples which contain four songs each. I’m not sure that these groupings will outright appear either related in clumps or tactically placed for a three act reveal but clearly a lot of effort has been put into not only the lyrics but the ride through the full listen.

From the swinging and scaling tension of opener “The Blackened Talmudist” to the volatile shanty that is “The Spoils of Judea (Dvir, Part II)” there is an unhinged yet direct quality to the grinding guitar attack found sparking throughout ‘The Third Temple‘. “Unblessed” is a fine standout in this regard, wholly focused on the variously percussive and drilled-at waves of the guitar’s directive with its leading melody eventually carried through the bulk of the piece once awakened. Spite once again reaches a standard which only albums like ‘The Pact…’ and ‘Achatius‘ have touched upon in recent memory otherwise by letting the riffs develop narrative just as strong as the vocals in Venom-esque performative strikes of heavy metal. Rather than build repetitive motif with these tools we get a possessed wringing of this trade-off of techniques, the pit-stirring stomp riff and the riveted machine gunned volley which together form the bones and blood of 80’s extreme metal be it pre-’86 Slayer or Mayhem in color. “Under Wings of Cherubim (Dvir, Part I)” was especially intense in this regard as a simply stated and riff-driven piece which clangs through its motions yet I’d soon realize that each song was landing around ~4-5 minutes and using similar body parts to churn and twitch through these events.

Where we are set in mid-possession, around the time “Desert Demons” hits on the running order, the ritual once again begins tracing its snaking arc by bloody fang in a familiar direction the whole vibe suggests this abundance of songs and riffs divulged in similar voice was part of an artistic bout of inspiration and one which’d yielded very focused results for those first five songs. It is an imposing rush but about time to shake things up in terms of songcraft by the time we’ve entered the second temple. “Hounds for Herod” more-or-less takes on late 80’s Bathory in the process of turning toward a slower, more deliberately cussed out groove albeit one writ for two guitars and given more serious propulsion per a Katharsis level of pound. From that point I’d felt the rest of the album did a fine job of diversifying the pace, type of riffs and the general feeling of each song to a sharper degree. “The Spoils of Judea (Dvir, Part II)” for example has an almost peak Grand Belial’s Key type movement to some parts and a taut early black-death slapping violence to its movement otherwise. There is a range available to their work but of course it all lands under a certain umbrella of taste in the more authentic species of black metal in mind.

The only truly maddening thing about the ‘The Third Temple‘ experience is that every piece counts on a recording which is consistent enough that all ~68 minutes of its girth are well worth considering. With every song managing at least some noteworthy and/or repeatable activity and with no glaring point of weakness or haphazardly sketched forms involved this makes for a record which is always afire, hammered and growled through arabesque guitar melodies (re: “The Dark Ark (Dvir, Part III)” and dramatic nigh traditional early 90’s level dirges of certain riffs (“The Third Temple”) but also one which doesn’t falter or stretch into inadvisable or out-of-focus ideas. My favorite point of climax on the full listen among several was “The Stone of Sahkrah” and for no other reason than the finesse of the rhythm guitar work, a skull grabbing ride every time I picked it up and one of numerous, myriad highlights outta twelve.

There is little to complain about or peck through in terms of ‘The Third Temple‘ and its performances and curation at the end of the day. Graced by particularly fine artwork, produced with clarity and grime, and given direction by distinct vocal and guitar work it is a fine album performed with necessary grit and just enough melodic interest to carry traits and such beyond their earlier work. Though I’d probably have been fine with a ~45 minute album just as well what does land here by Spite‘s hand exists as part of an upper echelon in execution per my own taste in black metal where the history of the sub-genre is not only an aesthetic consideration but a foundational interest and the way forward arrives via strong, relentless personage. The litmus test, or, the final consideration for an album like this per my own taste involves asking myself “would I spend much time with this sans any review process?” and yes, I’d have spent the summer with this record either way, praising the riff and the continuation of the high standards previously established by the artist. A very high recommendation.

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