KERASFÓRA – Six Nights Beyond the Serpent’s Threshold
Year: 2024
Label: Iron Bonehead Productions
Rating: 8,4 / 10
With his debut album, Chilean project KERASFÓRA confirms that the peculiar demo he released in 2021 was not accidental. KERASFÓRA, believe it or not, sounds really original. There is an extraordinary type of darkness in this music: it is not as dense and cavernous as usual, but rather... corridor-ish. But at the same time mystical. "Six Nights Beyond The Serpent's Threshold” brings to mind tense episodes of horror films, where the characters plunge into the depths of the passages of a building (for example, a psychiatric hospital), and realize that the passages are too deep for its size, and somewhere ahead, in the opaque shadows, hides the unspeakable evil entity. It feels pretty terrifying.
That darkness alone would have been enough to give the album a unique voice, but that's only half the story. The second half is irrepressible and unfriendly synths in the style of, again, horror and science fiction movies of the 80s. However, do not confuse this with ”retrowave". There is no romanticism and soulfullness here at any time. KERASFÓRA uses only a very specific set of sonorous sounds, playing not even on keys, but directly on your nerves. The guitars are unusual, too. Most of the album consists of mid-tempo, but pushing and hateful riffs in the vein of early CULTES DES GHOULES, which I always welcome. Drums, inaudiable bass and lifeless vocals on this album only work as the glue that holds it all together. The closest analogy is the most popular DOOR INTO EMPTINESS song "Vir".
The result is a very uncomfortable and cold album, but it's still impossible to break away from it. I could also add about acoustic arrangements and additional percussion lines, played on some bones or sticks, but you already understood that “Six Nights...”is worthy of attention. Maybe someone won't like the monotony of the album, but it's conceptual, so maybe that's what it needs to be. Iron Bonehead gives a worthy answer to those who began to believe that the label no longer has anything interesting to offer and is only walking the trodden path. And all he had to do was to pay attention to Chile - the greatest metal country of the world!
English (UK) 
Крыўская