The third album from this Californian entity arrives after a two‑year silence, and it erupts as a forgotten monolith pushed from the earth’s crust radiating a presence that is primordial and violently alive.
Much like the band’s previous recordings, it advances with an unrestrained devotion to black metal’s harsh essence. Yet Iron Firmament never remains confined within a single genre. Their sound fractures and reforms constantly, allowing incursions of death metal, fragments of folkish melodies and even passages of pure ambient abstraction.
However, these elements are more deeply entwined than before, more than a sequence of songs, there is a fluidity between violence and languidness that becomes a defining element of the record. While the ferocious passages strike with fiery intensity, they are repeatedly counterbalanced by hauntingly serene passages, which makes the listener drift between the roar of collapsing skies and the quietness of the prehistoric ocean embedded in this soundscape, sometimes reminiscent of the project Black Candle Wax.
"The Lost World" painting by Bruce Pennington.