Cultus Profano — Accursed Possession

It is generally thought that Black Metal originated in Scandinavia in the 1980s. I think that this statement is partly correct, because the more known/later popular take on the genre, began its journey in Scandinavia. However there was also USBM which appeared around the same time, and there was always been a tangible difference between the representatives of the European and American schools of this genre. During its formative years, European black metal, for the most part, was a dark and mystical opus, permeated with the spirit of nature and the North. This music had a minimal amount of outside influences, therefore it represented a new and original style of heavy music. American black metal, on the other hand, was more open to different influences- often mixing Scandinavian black metal, classic thrash, and death metal in its sound. In terms of themes, American school was guided by more occult topics. In the nineties, the difference between Scandinavia & USBM was quite noticeable, but over time, this border started to lessen & disappeared.

The American black metal duo Cultus Profano started in 2016 bringing together Los Angeles musicians Advorsus and Strzyga. In the same year, they released their first demo titled Sacramentum Obscurus. In 2018, French label Debemur Morti Productions released  the duos debut, utilizing the orignal demo's title. Two years later, the same label has put out a projects second full-length album Accursed Possession. It was released as either vinyl LP, Digipack CD, audiotape, and digital form. At the time of  writing, all tapes are already sold out, but the rest of the formats still are available for ordering from the label's website, and the Bandcamp pages of the label and band.
 
The album cover is a painted picture, which depicts a nude woman, slightly covered with a red cloth and floating in clouds of dark infernal smoke. A crucifix falls from her left hand. To her right, in the dark, is an altar with candles and skulls. The picture is painted in rather dark, but warm colors. The technique and colors are a bit like Rembrandt's paintings. In the upper right corner is the band's logo in red heavily redesigned Gothic font. In its style, the logo reminded me of the logo of the American band ABSU. At the bottom of the cover, in the middle, in one of the classic fonts, the title of the album is written, also in red. I noticed that the use of paintings as covers is now becoming quite common, which I personally am very happy about. Because it certainly gives a unique atmosphere to every album regardless of genre. As for the cover of Accursed Possession, I can say that it is a very high quality and professional work, which sets the listener in a certain mood and perfectly suits the musical content of the album.
 
The total duration of the album, consisting of seven tracks, is a little over forty-six and a half minutes. The album begins with a dark and atmospheric intro with occult whispers and lonely bells tinkling. It reminded me a bit of a couple of introductions from Mercyful Fate and King Diamond. I think was a wise move putting the listener in the perfect mood. On Accursed Possession Cultus Profano presents very high quality and atmospheric black metal played in a very fresh, technical, and modern manner. In each composition, there are equally different tempos of rhythms - from slow to high-speed. And, of course, along with the rhythmic pattern, the melodic component also shifts, represented in most moments by the classic black metal guitar tremolo. The melody structures are quite simple and minimalistic, however, they follow exactly the style that was laid in Scandinavian black metal and recall the early works of Darkthrone and possibly Gorgoroth. Melodic lines often use the classic Scandinavian black metal melody structure - the first note of a musical phrase is high and the last is low. I have always liked this compositional technique, and when I heard it from Cultus Profano, I was pleasantly surprised. The overall sound of the album seemed extremely interesting to me. The feeling of a  certain lightness of sound never left me. The guitars sound crystal clear and have virtually no lows. At moments, the timbre of the guitars seemed to be similar to the sound of a cello, which gave a certain charm to the overall sound. I got the feeling that something like a surround effect was used in the mixing and mastering, since the guitars are very weightless in both channels, and the rhythm section is located in the center and somewhere slightly above. Of course, I could be wrong, but anyway - great work was done in mastering and mixing. The vocal line is traditional black metal vocals without any standout moments. However, it matches the overall sound very harmoniously and is definitely an integral part of the compositions, even though, in my opinion, vocals play rather a supporting and secondary role in black metal. Continuing the line that I started at the beginning of the review, I noticed that black metal has become such an international phenomenon that it has become difficult to talk about a sub-genre classification. In the case of Cultus Profano, I can say that they play the most classic Scandinavian black metal in the style of the early albums of Darkthrone, Gorgoroth, Emperor, and so on, but with a more modern sound. 
 
Accursed Possession is without a doubt a very strong and solid album with a fresh and interesting sound. Cultus Profano hasn’t done anything innovative and unique. But, they brought classic black metal in a beautiful-yet- grim new wrapping. For my part, I highly recommend all black metal fans to get acquainted with the new album Cultus Profano, which, while not being an indisputable masterpiece, refreshed this genre.