In reciting their latest throng of ego-death rites Belgium-based black metal duo LVTHN enforce the surrender of all souls to Lucifer in order to distort and shatter all illusions enforced upon their ailing carapace, portal’ing the congestion of malign existence via this long denied sophomore full-length album. Through the blinding light and down into the truth of the abysm ‘The Devil’s Bridge‘ is an act of fomentation and self-extraction, a raw skinning of the psyche into less constricting parts. That is to say that it is a righteously fluid yet non-linearly set tract of riff-driven yet atmospherically rich black metal songs still affected by the cutting queasiness if past efforts.

Lvthn formed back in 2013 between vocalist Z.D. and composer D.S. for the sake of creating occult and orthodox inspired black metal via an adversarial spirit. In their formative ~year they’d introduced themselves via an handful of raw yet abstract songs between a demo, a split, and a rehearsal on cassette/7″ all of which’d been compiled as ‘The Grand Uncreation‘ (2014). They’d quickly become a known name amidst the then burgeoning Fallen Empire Records detainment and then slightly more established Amor Fati as a result. I’d describe the band’s early efforts as dramatically phrased, diabolic in their rhythmic jog but not quite reaching the obsessive and determined nausea of their debut LP (‘Eradication of Nescience‘, 2016) where their suggested appreciation for bands like Katharsis shone through brightest.

All of Lvthn‘s releases were composed and developed within just a couple of years time leading up to that point but it was clear that their first LP plus the EP that followed (‘The Spider Goddess‘, 2017) were built from the same sessions/current, suggesting their inspiration and action mostly occurred in a vacuum. At the time I’d figured their way forward was suggested via the longer piece on the latter (“Akkawbishia”) as a wrathful yet introverted scald evolved into majestic yet fixated longform sprawl. As it turns out ‘The Devil’s Bridge‘ now appears nearly a decade beyond armed with a series of ~5-6 minute black metal songs which’re condensed down to their most primal-evil efficacy rather than elaborated into bloated atmospheric rally.

Writ, ritualized and recorded mid-2019 in terms of the core instrumentation with the vocals additionally recorded in 2023 ‘The Devil’s Bridge‘ reeks of stale gestative juices, a rotted-through plan taken to cobwebbed spiritus and later given Lvthn‘s nauseated harmonization anew. ~One minute into opener “A Malignant Encounter: The Servant” and you’ll find a hook-like pulse of additional guitar interest amidst the wrathful thresh of their dual-channeled rhythm guitar stature, several milling parts contributing to a shuddering yet strangely austere first statement before an almost post-hardcorish collapse dements the middle portion of the song, capturing the stomach clenching pallor of past releases within an even more vigorous insectoid pulse.

The second part of this first act, “A Malignant Encounter: The Master“, is potentially even more thrillingly burnt through, a heated and hurled out event with an even more bestially shook force applied to its rhythms. The “playful” occult black metal bap of Lvthn‘s prior releases is in rare form already and this shows with any conscious follow of the tempo/beat itself but it is the frayed sanity conveyed within the vocal performances on this piece which truly stun and seat themselves in mind as a wretched-out, almost desperately gripped expression plays out. Downward scaling progression and an eternally shot hallway of rhythmic collapse recalls the possessed wrath of say, One Tail, One Head while the guitarists’ techniques still speak to a late 2000’s/early 2010’s post-orthodoxic extraction in their finer needled touches. The whole of the song rustles, almost rocks along a Voivodian pathos (echoic vocals included), a heaving of earth… madly shifting soil and brimstone as each third rolls along. For my own taste this was enough to’ve tunneled my mind deeply into this more actively stated yet tempo conscious record.

Most of the temperamental swings and clangorous tones found on those first two pieces translate directly to the remainder of the album with each song presenting confrontational, surreal and heroic yet tensely built guitar driven movements. The major point of interests here beyond ‘Eradication of Nescience’ for my own taste is dual-channeled between unnerving avant-garde atmospheric phrasing and the fluidity expressed between each piece as oft non-linear tracts find ways to enlace both in mood and method. “Cacodaemon” is probably the most dense piece to express such erratic but broadened ouevre but you’ll just as quickly find “Sum Quod Eris” carrying on rather than hitting the reset button with each piece as we’d found with Lvthn‘s first album. This makes an oceanic difference in the immersive value of the full listen and provides endless turning points for new riffs to spark abounding.

In fact for my own taste the rhythm guitar work and percussive toned reap of it all is surprisingly a major draw here, providing both variety and far less restrictive movement across the length of ‘The Devil’s Bridge‘. The earlier Immortal-esque rippling that kicks off “Mother of Abominations” and the crunchier hum of its grooves throughout couldn’t be mistaken for a variation on a theme in this sense but it yet relates to its surroundings in timbre and general diabolic angst. At the very least we find hills and valleys, points of waltz and demented stagger on the way across their work here and not just a rawly swerving hammer through. With that said the thrashing almost death n’ roll bounding found on album closer/title track “The Devil’s Bridge”, which features Kark of Dødsengel embodying the “devil” himself in character, feels like an odd endpoint which both relates to the thread but ends the thought by trailing away into a slow fade. For a finale beyond an otherwise thrill-a-minute record it isn’t the most inspiring endpoint, whatever point that we’ve crossed found its heated impasse earlier on the record and the drone out probably makes sense but I’d been ready to skip back to the start at least thirty seconds before the record ended.

After a ~decade in between major releases and nearly six years beyond its initial recordings ‘The Devil’s Bridge‘ yet reads as a fitting evolutionary result well in line with Lvthn‘s original intent. I’ll admit the main draw here is the guitar work, that is the major reason to pick this one up and delve countless times within, but I’d additionally point to the vocals here for marked improvement in characterizing their work. Otherwise the whole deal is well curated with cover art from the always brilliant Adam Burke leading the first impression. Taken as a whole and given to the lucifer-guided hand applied this is probably the band’s best work to date, warranting a very welcome return and an overall high recommendation on my part.

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