Black metal can be a feral, bone-sucking goblin of a genre, but there have always been bands willing to peek beyond the cave exit and launch their tremolo picked riffs into the sky. From Bathory’s epic Viking chants to Emperor’s dark synth-soaked majesty and Dimmu Borgir’s symphonic overload, these bands have retained the nastiness at black metal’s heart while propelling it to somewhere other. And so it is with Necronautical. Slain In The Spirit is the band’s fourth album and it pushes the boundaries further than ever before. Opener Ritual Recursion is a dizzying taster. There are big orchestral sweeps and operatic vocals soaring above discordant riffs and technical stabs of guitar. It’s sprawling but never unfocused, and that’s just the start. Occult Ecstatic Indoctrinat...
