Funeral Winds - "Sinister Creed" (Avantgarde Music, 2018)

Band: Funeral Winds
Title: Sinister Creed
Genre: Brutal Black Metal
Year: 29th January 2018
Time: 35 min
Rating: 88/100













Funeral Winds+Avantgarde Music: a sacrilegious alliance between two historic entities of the European extreme metal scene. On a side, Funeral Winds is a black metal band from the Netherlands guided, with extreme dedication to this music as well to the Satanic arts, by the only remaining founder member Hellchrist Xul since 1991. On the other side, Avantgarde Music is a well-known Italian label founded in 1994 that released albums of relevant bands like Carpathian Forest, Abigor, Behemoth and so on, but without forgetting its first incarnation under the name of Obscure Plasma Records, responsible to publishing in 1993 nothing else than the infamous "Live in Leipzig" (with Dead at the vokills!) by Mayhem! Well, this alliance gave recently dark life to "Sinister Creed", the 4th album of Funeral Winds after 11 fukken years from the previous one.


This return on the flabby Earth by Funeral Winds so to spread the ultimate word of Satan is really outstanding! Basically, the 8 tracks of the album express a blasting and malign black metal played with a merciless brutality, an approach represented at its best by the ultra-violent "Blood", a song where there are the guest vocals of Amon Xul (Kultist). The intensity of the music is even increased by some thrash metal hints ("Cursed is This Pantheon of Flesh") and there also moments that are closer to the crust punk ("The Road to Perdition").

Within all this triumph of violence, Hellchrist Xul and the session German drummer M.Z. Inversus (Kultist) are able to slowdown from time to time, as perfectly shown by "Black Moon Over Saturn". This number is surely the most atmospheric one into the tracklist thanks not only to some slow tempos and lead guitar lines but also to the contribution of the Polish guest Hekte Zaren (Adaestuo) with her spectral soprano vocals.

Bathory, Marduk, Katharsis, Antaeus...if you are into this stuff, then you'll enjoy a lot Funeral Winds, that, with "Sinister Creed", have managed to show a killing ultra-violence without forgetting to express a nice variety and even some ritualistic vibes ("Sekhmet"), so to range from "The Road to Perdition" with its crust punkish moments to the same titletrack which contains incredibly an only one riff throughout its lenght (!), or from the more structured "Black Moon Over Saturn" to end with the majestic and tempestuos "Nunc et in hora mortis nostrae". I would like to listen to more thrash metal moments but now there is need to stop this fukken review because "Sinister Creed" is an EVIL BLACK METAL MASTERPIECE as it should be!

P.S. In according to an announcement published one month ago on the FB page of the band, Hellchrist Xul is looking for a drummer and a guitarplayer (both have to be very skilled and dedicated to Satan as well to the true evil essence of black metal, considering this genre not an entertainment but a real Satanic propaganda) for the next live gigs of Funeral Winds. Is that announcement still valid today?

Tracklist:

1 - The Road to Perdition
2 - Cursed Is This Pantheon of Flesh
3 - The Arrival
4 - Sinister Creed
5 - Blood
6 - Black Moon Over Saturn
7 - Sekhmet
8 - Nunc et in hora mortis nostrae

Line-up:

Hellchrist Xul - vocals/guitars/bass
M.Z. Inversus (session) - drums

Guest vocals:

Amon Xul - "Blood"
Hekte Zaren - "Black Moon Over Saturn"

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/FuneralWindsBM
Bandcamp: https://funeralwinds.bandcamp.com/