Poured from the grip of Satanic possession into labyrinthine singularity the corridors of the mind are once again alight with sinister ritual and dark magickry under the spell of Gliwice, Poland-based death metal quartet DEVILPRIEST as the hypnosis presented by their third full-length album promises to first overtake and then liberate the mind. Endeavoring to source the primeval left-hand path ‘Where I Am the Chalice, Be Thou the Blood‘ offers a series of blackened death rituals, threads of rhythmic concoct in conveyance of the full-bodied ache preceding willful liberation. Still rooted in classic death metal form and function with black metallic flourish and purpose infused the band’s work here deforms the pathos of a searching mind, sending thoughts swimming against the current toward a state of new-found deviation. Attuning their tangent to the flux of transcendental entrancement the band’s efforts are yet riff-obsessed, driven by imposing hammer as ever even when presenting headier, tightly wrung pieces.

Devilpriest have been around since 2015 having formed between folks involved in the Polish underground black and death metal scenery tracing as far back as the late 90’s/early 2000’s. I’d discovered the band’s work through their debut (‘Devil Inspired Chants‘) back in 2017, briefly mentioning it as part of an “underrated death metal releases” column from that year. At the time I’d likened their approach to the realm created by Morbid Angel and Angelcorpse inspired death with an appreciable focus on the riff, not unheard of within the Polish death metal tradition… but also not so typical as they’d take on a veering, Immolation-esque tangent nearly as often. This collation of influences sustains through all of their releases.

While it would make great sense to consider the band’s sound “blackened” each of their releases reflects a central rooting in the dead-serious face of United States death metal in the early 90’s and expands beyond the suggested canon with extreme severity. Just as we’d found in review of their accomplished sophomore LP (‘In Repugnant Adoration‘, 2022) Devilpriest‘s approach could be likened to the blackened death exaggerations of of groups like Vital Remains, Pessimist and the Polish death upsurge in the 90’s/early 2000’s in terms of jagged forms and fuming grandeur but with some relevance to the distortion and melting of those ideas which we also find in the more freely-flowing hands of black/death metal bands today such as Lvcifyre or even certain releases from labelmates Embrace of Thorns.

We arrive upon a charred landscape, far beyond the pulpit of the past as the tension-braced meander of ‘Where I am the Chalice, Be Thou the Blood‘ presents something similar in its basal digestion of death metal but now manifesting an even more hypnotic riff-driven experience. With the recording efforts now expanded into a quartet for this record Devilpriest are is yet still rooted in the hard angles of ancient death metal but mutated under the horrified gaze of blasphemy so that its maze of layered riffcraft presents unconventionally reeling shapes for much of its duration, tamping down some of their abrupt brutality for the sake of a mind-bending venture, a thread which rallies on for most of its ~35 minute run. The atmosphere generated here is a great point of focus to start but ultimately this record will stick in mind for their at-times referential but always feral riff n’ rhythm.

‘Where I am the Chalice, Be Thou the Blood‘ isn’t any less brutal than Devilpriest‘s first two albums, it simply isn’t as loud. Upon approach of opener “He Is In Me” I’d appreciated the intimacy of the production values, an underground thrashing death metal sound which gives its most lucid voicing to drums and rhythm guitars, yet it wasn’t until I’d cranked it ~15% higher than the norm that it’d begin to flatten me. This is inconsequential in terms of the review process but there was a point where cranking the volume allowed the details to shine more and the immersive ‘Here in After‘-inflected crash and command of the opener to overtake the senses. That said this is a more patient, most precise yet not so hard-edged vision from the band where they’ve taken their time developing some incredibly elastic and volatile throngs of riff within not only the opener but each piece included.

The peak example of Devilpriest‘s precision and patient hand here is arguably found within the irreverently thrashed grooves of “Unwavering in the Left Hand Path”, one of the more hypnotically shaped waves presented which uses pinch harmonics and exaggerative salvo to punctuate their dance into dizzying, irregular circles. As their ritual is enacted the simplicity of these forms is evident yet the curation of all elements is non-standard, gated by black metal chord-scraping militance and centrally shot chasmic roar which echoes across the ceiling like thee inverted possessed. The sophistication of these movements reveals itself under close scrutiny yet the kind of mid-paced, lumbering early 90’s black/death groove of the song becomes its spectacle.

The more overtly referential sensation of Devilpriest‘s sound arrives glommed into one incredible mid-album piece, “SNEGTH IER ARNES (The Words That Have Become the Effect)“, where the indomitable Necro Docre‘s drumming rolls us into a black-thrashing open ’til Vigna-worthy and Azagthothian leads jam across the first third of the song, likely to ping the well-tested ears of blasphemic death fandom with some immediate reaction. For my own taste the real ear-twisting hit of this increasingly brutal piece hits around ~2:35 minutes and any keen enough ear will understand why as soon as it hits. This creates a point of expansion for the song to boil within before more technical, thrashing strikes return us to the bounding groove that’d developed in the first third of the song. Simple enough songcraft at a glance and some referential guitar playing on top of that yet the effect of this piece is a great central surge of purpose within the full listen, a strong point of fascination at the very least.

It isn’t that the impact of this album has ceased by the midpoint but rather the flowing nature of the tracklist and the experience as a whole doesn’t define any certain endpoint, punctuation set between its first and second half. The whole of ‘Where I am the Chalice, Be Thou the Blood‘ appears to aim for contiguous animation, an unceasing whipping of the senses which is consistently focused on its thread and avoidant of overtly busied or plainest space-filling riffs. This makes for a potent presentation throughout but doesn’t offer the gesturing of a typical “rock” album format; On Side B “Channeling Into the Peerless Transgressiveness” reprises some of the blackened Immolation-esque muse found throughout the album, “The Enmity Against the Grave” revives the black-thrashing side of their sound and all-in-all the second half is no less impactful than the first as fresh variations on Devilpriest‘s sound are presented without error or issue. In fact the whole affair is almost eerily intentioned in hand, fiery and explosive in every case but unflinchingly performed with a real economy of statement. This makes for a well combed-through series of riffs and runs which might turn on a dime at a high rate but carry a common purpose in their arcing stretches.

Carved into granite rather than the usual mold-injected plastic trash expected of blackened death metal today Devilpriest‘s third album ultimately won me over for its concise and assured hand in crafting death metal pieces which blister, seethe and invaginate with a sensibility admirably in tune with classic death metal canon. It took a few close-eared passes through their greater thread spun to fully unfurl their banners raised yet their efforts yield an album which is both in a certain blackened-death tradition and of its own sentience. It is fitting that an album dedicated to seeking the locus of the left hand path would reflect some of thier most individual and repeatable work. A high recommendation.

---