Crimson Moon - Xepera Xeper Xeperu

This California USA band Crimson Moon has created the most arty black magick metal music I think I have heard from the contemporary American scene. I even think this is more creative that Nachtmystium (from near Chicago, USA), who tend toward amazing bouts of guitar noise and long-winded whispy flourishes. Crimson Moon, in their newest CD, XEPERA XEPER XEPERU, have built a dense layering of black metal and total melancholia. They are influenced by black magick and the occult like it is more than just a hobby and are not afraid to preach that to the unconverted or the fearful. Even their label, Kthulhu Productions, does more than simply release music, they also are committed to carrying products and information related to the occult. This dedication on the part of the band and their label might not sway toward the extremes of violence that Gaahl of the Norwegian Gorgoroth has done in his acts of torture and church burning, but Crimson Moon seems to have found a path.

The CD opens with something other than neo-classical, the sound is much more smooth and filmic. There will be a witch waiting for the listeners in the archway of the album. I know it. The CD then turns into black metal but with a cleanness that is unmatched in anything I think I have ever heard. I am not talking about that poppy high production value found so commonly in that bore of a Norwegian “black metal” band Dimmu Borgir. I am talking about a spotlessness that verges on the beautifully deliberate and artificial. This is not a band that seems like it wants to play only black metal, this is a band that us steeped in black metal but knows how to tear out a new essence of rhythmic guitar picking, folky style, and mixes it with distortion and pure growl. To push this point further and to draw more for the CD itself, XEPERA XEPER XEPERU is such a work of musical artifice that it has two INTROS and two OUTROS. I bring this observation to attention because it places in the forefront the work of the CD, structuring of music, and might help a listener start to think about intent. But within this double INTRO/OUTRO is powerful Behexen strength black metal that will blow anyone away with any black metal taste at all. And for those with refined black metal taste, black metal connoisseur taste, then the effect will be quite breathtaking in the musical effort and near-epic stylings. I think Crimson Moon’s XEPERA XEPER XEPERU may be one of the most innovative and voluminous-scale black metal albums of the NOW.

1. Intro - Compos Mentis
2. The Serpent Beneath The Skin
3. Bringer Of Calamity
4. Outro - Consummatum Est

1. Intro - The Dirge Of The Apocalypse
2. Kingdom Of Shadows
3. Praise Be The Blood Of The Serpent
4. Carpe Noctem
5. The Storm Bringer
6. Sender Of Nocturnal Visions
7. To Offer Thy Crimson Sacrament
8. The Eye Of The Draconis
9. Outro - Embraced
Deathgasm Records
Reviewer: Jesse
Feb 26, 2009

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