Sulfurous Prayers Of Blight And Darkness is a collection of two demonstrational recordings, Sulfurous Prayers (2010/2011) and Blight And Darkness (2009/2010). That explains the grandiose title of this compilation, as you could have guessed… Sulfurous Prayers was the band’s (in fact, a one-man project) 2011-demo, Blight Of Darkness was released in 2009 under the former moniker, Sperm Of Antichrist. The purists amongst us would call this stuff a split-release, I guess, but what the f…
The material is what matters right here. First of all, the sound. Sorry, but it is truly shitty. That is very sad (he, don’t we all like sadness?...) because this kind of material deserves much better. I do really wonder why the project, nor the label, did take any effort at all to have this stuff re-recorded or, at least, re-mastered in one way or another. A pity!
That inferior sound comes close to tristesse for the stuff itself is truly fine. Void Meditation Cult (and Sperm Of Antichrist too) perform the kind of Black / Death Metal that dwells within the most obscure, grim and occult regions of Aural Sickness. Void Meditation Cult’s Old School Purity sort of is the essence of down-tuned and mesmerizing Black Rituals, the definition of Sonic Devil-worship in its truest form. It’s like Von, Profanatica, Sarcofago, Archgoat and the likes, but much slower, less neurotic, and more ritualistic. The older material, from the band’s Sperm Of Antichrist-era, is in general not that slow at all (even though the main tempo is poundingly slow indeed), but with the same occult and ritual atmosphere. It grabs you by your throat, but you will like the feeling of suffocation and asphyxiation while devoting to those hymns of Primal Blackness. It’s like Profanatica, Beherit, etc., joined forces to have this stuff created to un-please the stupid masses called Humanity, and who am I to dislike this?...! The only difference, besides some faster parts, might be the vocals, which are much more ‘hollow’ and haunting, but the spirit is in both cases of the bleakest kind.