Year: 2023
Label: Signal Rex
Rating: 7,5 / 10
The debut album of the Danish project GEISTAZ'IKA was the most pleasant discovery for me in 2019. Ancient, atmospheric, emotional, deep and beautiful dark metal, inspired by early ULVER, it captured you from the first riff that resembled the immortal title theme for "Phantasm" movie. At the same time, being incredibly intense, the album had a distinctive feature: you wanted to listen to it on repeat over and over again.
Unfortunately, the new album that suddenly surfaced among my promos did not achieve the greatness of its predecessor. The degree of events in it is much lower. Aesthetically, everything is still excellent here: the analog sound recorded at the studio of Henri Sarvali of FINTROLL, and the atmosphere, like 4+ years ago, is exhaustingly and disturbingly beautiful. However, in music, as for me, GEISTAZ'IKA overdid the arrangements, sometimes replacing the metal backbone with them. There is a lot of acoustics and clean vocals, but there are relatively few emotionally tuned riffs left, and most of them are saved for the last 20-minute track. And, to be honest, the quality of these riffs has decreased. They are very strong against the background of other representatives of the scene, but there is nothing here that could compete with the material from the debut. On the other hand, all the vocal parts, on the contrary, turned out to be outstanding. Especially in those moments where mr. Geistaz sings in the manner of Shamaatae of ARCKANUM.
With all this, I certainly recommend "Midnatsbøn ved djævelens port" to everyone, especially those who have not listened to GEISTAZ'IKA before. One way or another, this is an elite piece of work, and my main goal as the author of the webzine is to find such diamonds for you in the heaps of manure that the underground scene spews out every day.
English (UK) 
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