TRACK LISTING

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1.  Astral Path to Supreme Majesties
2.  Command of the Dark Crown
3.  Desolate Funeral Chant
4.  Cosmic Invocation Rites
5.  Conjuration
6.  Upon the Fire Winged Demon
7.  Ominous Doctrines of the
     Perpetual Mystical Macrocosm
8.  Crepuscular Battle Hymn
9.  Hymn for a Dead Star
10.  Across the Abyss
       Ancient Horns Bray

Total playing time:  41:50

Release Date: November 19, 2010
Label: No Colours Records /
Hells Headbangers

Inquisition - Ominous Doctrines of the Perpetual Mystical Macrocosm

Reviewer: Chris

October 30, 2011

Admittedly I arrived late to the Inquisition game, but after hearing this record in its entirety during a long car ride in the rain I must say I was immediately impressed. Ominous Doctrines of the Perpetual Mystical is just the latest in a long line of dark metal that’s been emanating from this band since 1988 back in Columbia.

This album is not your typical speedy, derivative mess that becomes more parody and fickle mistress than forerunner or leader in the field. Inquisition manages to convey a very simple and non-stultifying brand of black metal that is reminiscent of the old Norwegian sound if slowed to a tempestuous crawl aside some of the more effective tremolo-picked contemporaries.

“Desolate Funeral Chant” is the track that encompasses all that is proficient and powerful about such an undertaking with its crafty riff that seems to burrow its way into your head like a slow turning of a one-way screw into your cranium. The hideousness of the tone in this track alone sets you up for the rest of the record in its resilient homage to all things evil. For your speedy, black, and violent needs “Crepuscular Battle Hymn” will serve you well. This is your basic track-from-Hell that provides some crisp atmosphere and diabolical feelings as the vocal melody literally curls your toes with its belching quality that sounds more like an EVP caught on tape during a haunted mental hospital trip. This is the fine mesh of black metal from the catacombs of the early 90’s and the strong, empowering slowdown of your more enchanting death/doom audio visages from the modern day. 

While there are some of the slower and more hypnotic moments interspersed throughout the album, something like “Cosmic Invocation Rites” absolutely devastates all the right fissures in your stomach that barely hold together your reason and resistance. The low, nearly whispered vocal delivery is not an exuberant effort, but that in itself is the charm of it. It more or less compliments the dismalness of the black metal being offered.

What also sets apart Inquisition from pretty much all other bands of similar ilk is that there is little attention paid to the current trends of fast, screeching black metal or, when some bands find no real money to be made in the medium anymore, they now switch to this ‘post-black’ thing to jump on the next gravy train. What large, safety-conscious crowd of mall dwellers Dimmu Borgir has malignantly entranced is left to them as Inquisition steals the underground masses in a style more befitting a band of such high caliber and ability. This record defies the convention and bells-and-whistles of this pedestrian black metal movement of today and keeps the unholy fires lit and burning for all in the underworld to see. Ominous Doctrines of the Perpetual Mystical Macrocosm is all that should be utilized in black metal; the current movement too above board to be a secret and too underwhelming to resound should have died off the second Jon Nodtveidt ended his own life in 2006.

If you do a quick search you’ll come to find that virtually every Inquisition recording is a meriting jaunt into the black metal arena that will only lead you to more golden treasures than copper along the way. This album should be no exception in its sheer taming and training of the hordes among them.