Review of Predatory Light - "Predatory Light"
SURFING THE BLACK DESERT
By: Geoff Teach
New Mexico is not normally the first place you'd think of when it comes to blackened doom metal, but when it comes to the music of Santa Fe's Predatory Light, the sands of the western American deserts seem to be the perfect influential birthplace for this nihilistic quartet. Part black metal, part doom, and part desert surf rock, Predatory Light mixes up this uncommon blend of musical characteristics and moods to hatch their own uniquely dark and decadent sound - and the end result is nothing short of spectacular.
Winsome, willful, and devastatingly wicked, Predatory Light's forthcoming, self-titled full-length (due out September 22nd, 2016 via Invictus Productions/Psychic Violence Records) is bewildering in its surf-inspired black metal riffs and tones, and utterly deleterious in its doomy delivery. Sometimes trenchant, sometimes trudging, and always bewitching, Predatory Light is black metal innovation at its best and most discriminating.
Featuring six expansive tracks, Predatory Light begins its bestial march to the tune of eerie organs before dropping the blackened doom hammer on "Laughing Wound", and it only gets better from there. Songs such as "Lurid Hand" and "Divine Membrane" draw you in with their ingeniously inventive surf tones over crushing rhythms, but it is the track "Sacrum (Feral Devotion)" that has your humble metal journalist's brain all in a full-on tizzy. With its seven-plus minutes of creative fretwork, barbaric beats, and bloodcurdling, primal screams, "Sacrum (Feral Devotion" is far-and-away my favorite track on Predatory Light's latest ripper of an album.
Pre-orders for physical copies of Predatory Light are active now, so order yours today and don't miss out on owning this visionary album!
To listen to Predatory Light, just press play below!
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