Serpentes
“Desert Psalms” (NoEvDia, 2025)
Serpentes: A Suffocating Avant-Garde Black Metal Journey
I have been holding back from reviewing this release, due to how hard I believe it will be to put it into words, honestly. It might sound as if I am trying to justify a possibly shite review, but in all honesty, I believe it will be hard to “paint” an image of what this release is, to me. First off, it grew from the deranged mind of one Portuguese Artist that needs more attention from Black Metal fans: A. Ara (Angrenost, Storm Legion, Sirius…); he called a few friends over, and they crafted this amazing piece of Art! The friends, simple people, musicians…: Dagur Gíslason and Magnús Skúlson (Mispyrming), Erdsaf (Angrenost) and Ólof Rún (Svartpoka). As you can see, the line-up is mental, and so is the music.
The music… At times I feel I am running out of breath, as if the oxygen was slowly ending, and I am just waiting for it to end. It feels almost claustrophobic, in a way. A dark room, a cold tunnel, a nightly sky and a frozen soul. It might sound odd to the ones reading this, I reckon; however, it also does sound odd to me. In terms of describing the music, I would never use the adjective “complex”; the music is not simple, it is not of easy listening, as I believe I mentioned before, but it is not a complex musical construction. I was very easily drawn into it, and I regularly go back to it; however, it is hard to describe it in words, given the number of feelings and emotions that one extracts from it. It is not your plain Black Metal release, that is certain.
Craftsmanship is superb, so one knows what to expect from this release. Beautifully “painted” and majestically put into place. Serpentes has gifted us one of the best releases of 2025, and one of the more ignored ones. I have no idea what the Black Metal community is feeding on, but ignoring such a release, is criminal. Some use the label Avantgarde as a way to describe Serpentes; others, are more inclined to comparisons with A’s remaining projects; several, link it – stylistically – to Deathspell Omega or Blut Aus Nord; in the end, I feel that this project is a sort of perfect synthesis, a flawless fusion of sounds and melodies, overwhelming experiences and emotions.
As it started, it ends. Hard it is to review, to describe what “Desert Psalms” is, sounds, looks, feels; it is a journey.
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