After releasing two full length albums in as many years – “When Life Falls Silent” (2020) and “Through Deepest Fears And Darkest Minds” (2021) – Phobetor opted to take their time with their next creative endeavour. They expanded their line-up, bringing occasional live guitarist Ben Ash (Strigoi, Satyricon) fully into the fold and set sail for even darker waters. They have returned with an EP that towers over their previous output – as genuinely impressive as those albums were – that radiates an unnerving atmosphere as it lays waste to all it surveys in insidiously wicked fashion. “A Solitary Vigil” is a work of rare mystery and malevolence; as you peer into its impenetrable blackness, an obsidian mirror, it disgorges all the terrors you had forgotten were real, the dream monsters that hide in the deepest recesses of your mind…an onslaught of blackened death and mind-rending fear.
The five tracks that comprise this book of shadows are as finely crafted as they are ferocious. From “Black Fading Winter” with its soul shaking bass, riffs like jagged black knives and a hive of nightmares for a heart, to the death metal colossus that is “The Vacant Worlds Within”, a war machine of formidable power, each song is immaculately sculpted and driven by an uncanny intensity. The individual performances on display are exceptional, with the blood-freezing invocations of vocalist Debora Conserva tearing through the cold flesh fabric of each hypnotic, violently realised vision. It’s no small thing to declare that “A Solitary Vigil” outstrips the pitiless death magic of “When Life Falls Silent” and “Through Deepest Fears And Darkest Minds”, but Phobetor have returned darker and more devilish than before – and it’s a metamorphosis that has brought them closer than ever to the blackened core of their true selves. Tracks like “Absence Of Light” leave no room for argument; they simply drown you in the essence of the night.
“A Solitary Vigil” has been given a vitality you can sense, a vibrancy you can taste, by the mixing of Ollie Roberts (Pythia, Born For War etc) and mastering of Lawrence Mackrory (Darkane, Defleshed, Paradise Lost etc), with the final enticing aura being completed by the superbly evocative cover art of Ghost Kid. Upon its July 25th release by Black Jasper Records, enter this labyrinth of mourning and hunger, of agony and despair…and rejoice.
