Luring - Malevolent Lycanthrophic Heresy LP

Luring - 'Malevolent Lycanthrophic Heresy' LP

Black vinyl edition with insert limited to 200 copies

The trio's third album features much of the same foundation as its two LP predecessors - rippling physicality fused with otherworldly texture, inspired by contemporaneously early Abigor and Gorgoroth as equally as turn-of-the-millennium Nocternity and Lunar Aurora - but here do LURING intensify the extremes of their sound. On one hand, that physicality goes a more gutted direction, digging deep into sepulchral catacombs almost deathly. On another hand (and especially as the album plays on), their once-subtle melodicism goes to bolder lengths: some more melancholic, others more triumphant, but always with a fully developed narrative arc. Interestingly, half the album is given to instrumental tracks that aren't strictly "ambient" in the usual black metal sense(s), imparting haunting / alluring atmospheres that thread seamlessly into Malevolent Lycanthropic Heresy's overall sensory experience; however, there are touches of true ambient within the other four, otherwise-black-metal songs. Altogether, and armed with a cleaner and yet still-analog production, LURING render their third full-length a never-belabored masterclass in black metal both authentically ancient and refreshingly modern.