NATHR / ORDO CULTUM SERPENTIS
Shadows crawl

Shadows Call comprises a total of 37 minutes and two epic-length tracks, one each from Signal Rex‘s most striking discoveries in recent years, Nathr and Ordo Cultum Serpentis. Nathr are up first with “The Burial,” a nearly-20-minute track that duly lives up its namesake. Plaintive and placid, yet unsettlingly so, for more than half its massive duration, “The Burial” mesmerizes with a strangely beautiful aspect before exploding into a slo-mo crush akin to the cosmos crumbling away, deceptively peaceful in its resigned oblivion. Ordo Cultum Serpentis are second, with the nearly-17-minute “Filii Serpentis Nigri.” Much like their two celebrated EPs last year, the duo sonically approximate a massive boulder ritualistically opening into an impossibly vast tomb. But, like their split-mates, halfway through the track, they surprise with a jarring-yet-somehow-seamless transition into ritualistic blasting, sealing that same tomb with utter finality.

Simply put, blackened doom doesn’t get much better than this. And Nathr and Ordo Cultum Serpentis together a create a complementary work rather than a split “album” full of throwaway tracks. Feel their Shadows Crawl!