Candura - "/I" (GreySun Records, 2018)

Band: Candura
Title: /I
Genre: Drone/Black Noise
Time: 35.42 min
Release Date: 13th October 2018
Rating: 70/100













Portugal isn't only raw black metal (Black Cilice, Trono Além Morte...) nor violent thrash metal (Perpetrator, Toxik Attack...) but also something infinitely heavier like Candura! They plays a kind of music going very beyond the genres usually faced on this 'zine but, at the same time, they completely deserve to be featured on these pages because they are really extreme! And if memory serves, you can find something similar here only with the Italian project Bleeding Void of Utter Mysticism but these ones, in comparison with Candura, sounds "light"! So, today I will scare you with this duo from Portugal that contacted me in November 2018 to ask me to review their debut full-lenght album, mysteriously entitled "/I", released last year through GreySun Records, an obscure US label located in Portland, Oregon.

Now, the first thing you must know about "/I" is that it consists of only 2 tracks but together they last the atrocious beauty of 35 minutes! So, you'll understand already that "/I" isn't absolutely to be considered as a tranquil walk. And this is ultimately confirmed by letting you know that Candura loves to torture the listeners with a sort of anguishing, claustrophobic and ritualistic drone/noise/black metal agony. With these premises, are you really sure to enter the unknown dimension dwelled by these two Portuguese wizards?

For those who dare to enter it, your torturing journey starts with "I", an 11-minute track that set already the sound of Candura. The pace is fukken ultra-slow thanks to some sort of pachydermic percussions, there is a lot of guitar feedback while strange, boomy noises seem to be a swarm of possessed bees attacking the listeners with no mercy. Some human signals comes finally after 6 instrumental minutes under the shape of painful, distant screams. After a while, this ritual becomes more insane and scaring due to spirited clean vocals. And to complete this apocalyptic (anti)musical vision, the structure of "I" is (obviously) really paranoid and reduced to the bone but it's apparently static since Candura are good to add little details from time to time, as the aforementioned clean vocals.

If possible, the following (anti)song "I'" extremizes what you have listened in the previous one. This firstly because it is a colossal monolith of rare proportions lasting even 24 minutes! And secondly because, into "I'", there are no safe rhythmic references also since the percussions are mostly absent, so it is a lot more abstract than "I". Interesting details comes this time, for example, by very deep growls and, especially, by wind noises that occasionally seem to appease this agony...but only for some short, illusory moments!

Now, you know that I love so much the extreme metal in its most aggressive forms because these ones actively engages the listeners also in a physical plane (and even for this I love hardcore punk!). Instead, doom metal and related genres "passively" engages the listeners only in a mental and emotive plane, at least in my opinion. But these personal preferences don't avoid me to appreciate some very different slow bands like Abysmal Grief, Witchfinder General or...or just Candura, that crafted a really terrifying black noise/drone ritualistic music perfect for the fans of SunnO))) and Khanate, playing also very difficult (anti)songs such is their immense lenght, and this is really courageous for a young band. Obviously, there is still room for improvements since Candura maybe should make a bit more unpredictable their style so to create more dynamics for their next productions to come but, for the moment, we have to enjoy this only release of them. And, if you have the opportunity, I suggest you to see Candura live also because, despite their kind of music, they are quite active in the live front, playing even in art exhibitions!

Tracklist:

1 - I
2 - I'

Line-up:

unknown

FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/canduramusic/
BandCamp: https://candura.bandcamp.com/releases
GreySun Records: https://greysunrecords.storenvy.com/