Inverting the sacrament of rot-tainted Christendom once more Santiago, Chile-based black/death metal quartet BLASART return for a sophomore full-length nearly two decades beyond the last. Embracing extensive change while retaining the same blasphemic voice ‘Depravatus Christianis Sacris‘ reaches for a multitude of new sounds and entirely rethought dynamic apropos of chasm of time between major releases. Through both ‘old school’ and modern interest in black, death and extreme thrash metal these folks achieve a different album experience than anything they’d managed before, breaking from the rigidity of brutality in order to raise their ante-sermons to a new level of defiance.

There was a fair deal of dark atmospheric and brutal death in Chilean circles of the late 90’s/early 2000’s and in fact guitarist/songwriter Eduardo Vera had been a part of brutal troupe Orategod before forming Blasart in 2003 in seeming reaction to the aggressive black metal of the time. While it would be natural to consider the throttled pummel of Norwegian and Polish groups (re: Zyklon, Azarath etc.) or even just Angelcorpse at peak notoriety per guitar work we find on the band’s 2008 debut ‘The Art of Blasphemy‘ much of it were angled toward more than just Scandinavian black metal volatility and the ribald warblasts of the era. Their follow-up EP (‘Rebellion Abyss Chaos‘, 2014) entertained a similar ratio sans the hollowed sound design and erratic flow of the debut. All of this provides some general insight as to how these folks have developed their sound and adapted to many line-up changes over the last couple of decades but it was the Behemoth-esque ‘Depravatus‘ (2022) EP that provides most direct precedence for this new LP, acting as something of a “demo” for a few songs which were reworked and renamed in Latin.

‘Depravatus Christianis Sacris‘ generally addresses two missing linkages between the band’s efforts in the past: The first is some manner of extreme thrash metal affect conjoining their wrathful black/death metal tirades (re: “Venenum Immersionem Ritual”) and the second being movement away from purely 90’s black metal interest/techniques. You’ll find some manner of occult black metal grandstand on “Violatio Mortem Illius Nazareni”, some dissonant black/death treading on “Mors Extrema Imminentia”, and a nigh black n’ roll groove at the center of “Ritus Impositionis Sacrilegae” wherein taking on these different stances shows a marked evolution of Blasart‘s approach beyond their pre-2022 efforts. So, in this sense you shouldn’t expect to find more than the fiery anti-Christian spirit b/w some shots of brutality per the band’s debut album here.

Before diving into some of these details the intro piece/title track provides some light foreshadowing but the major impact of the first half of the full listen comes with the aforementioned “Venenum Immersionem Ritual” with its quick snapped death-thrashing grooves and almost Krisiun-esque militance ensuring and aggressive point of entry for the returning fan. There is an almost black-thrashing quality to the next few songs which flow together well per their percussive and quickly ripped through malign. That rush becomes most interesting to my ear around the interruptive qualities of “Supplicia Absolutum Numinis Iram” where rushing blasts and the militant trample (see: ~1:27 minutes in) of the piece have an unleashed, far less contained quality to their strikes.

The second half of ‘Depravatus Christianis Sacris‘ experiments a bit more with the black metal spectrum with “Mors Extrema Imminentia acting as a general centerpiece for the amount of change fostered into Blasart‘s work. The initially mid-paced and juddering streak of the album isn’t necessarily “dissonant” in terms of the usual tag but rather carries some of the ringing despondency one’d typically find in said style, instead there is more of a melodious post-black feature to it which is at odds with expectations built by the full listen up ’til that point but a unique addition to the whole deal. Album closer “Luxuriosa Promiscua Unio Carnalis Magnarum” adds to this idea to some degree but as the ~33 minute girth of the full listen comes to a close I’d felt those ideas called for at least one more compounding piece to seal their inclusion in the lot.

The general praise I’d give Blasart‘s second full-length album amounts to entirely expanded musical consciousness, nearly twenty years of space well accounted for within a highly dense yet varietally struck explosion of inspired work. No, it doesn’t reprise the brutality of their earlier stuff entirely but rather carries in that crushed-out, riff-forward aggression as the flag to bear before venturing into a number of other realms. Beyond the band’s capable stylistic evolution I’d praise the curation of the whole affair for raising the standard of both sound design (DM6 Recording Studio x Estudio Sonido Origen) and general aesthetic (cover art from Luciana Nedelea) to the point that the whole experience appears serious, substantial in its vested creation. A high recommendation.

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