ANTE-INFERNO – “Death’s Soliloquy” (Vendetta Records, 2024)

 
…A work of death and a study of despair, or the audial and poetical manifestation of mental illness. Imagine a nightmare from which one can never awaken. How else might one escape it, except by plunging oneself yet farther into the darkness where all thoughts, fears and doubts are dispelled, and all things come to an end, as all things must.

Released November 22, 2024

“Death’s Soliloquy” is an exploration of lyricist Kai’s journey through depression and hopelessness, through obsessive thoughts of the most morbid and macabre nature—thoughts of self-destruction interwoven with the most appalling nightmares, broken hopes and unacted desires. As old lives are shed and new lives struggle to take form, there is always a war raging within and without—a war that can never truly be won but may, at any moment, be lost for all eternity…

The album’s nightmarish cover art (from the masterful mind of Khaos Diktator Design), perfectly sums up the album’s sonic approach. An ode to madness, mental illness, death obsession and unfettered suicidal despair, “Death’s Soliloquy” harnesses the bestial might of traditional black metal and intricately weaves it with the haunting majesty of the atmospheric sound the band is known for, and in doing so takes the listener on an anguished, hysterical descent into the blackened emptiness of the grave.

“The album’s theme is death viewed through different lenses and experiences”, the band explains. “A soliloquy is where a character in a play speaks their thoughts aloud, but they’re speaking to themselves rather than to the audience. So this is like Death speaking on behalf of those who have died, reliving the final moments of their lives and what led them to that point – because the dead can’t speak, but Death was there with every one of them at the end.”

“Death’s Soliloquy” track listing:
1. The Cavernous Blackness of Night
2. Towards Asphyxiating Darkness
3. Cold. Tenebrous. Evil
4. Into the Eternity of Death
5. No Light till Life’s End
6. An Axe. A Broadsword. A Bullet
7. Thalassophobia