Label: Nigra Mors / Herrecords
Date: May 26th, 2025
It’s time to revisit the old alliance! A fresh batch of Nigra Mors releases has been dropped at my doorstep, which means that I’m about to be submerged into the lake of premium extreme underground metal from Galiza. Lead by the mastermind behind the name Xerión, Nigra Mors became a source for obscure black art. Where nothing is off limits, just as long as it exudes darkness, violence or simply unnerving psychological impact.
Since I’m a long time fan and friend of Xerión, it is understandable that first I’m playing with one of their releases. Because there are no less than three of those this time. However, this split release in particular, starts on the “flipside”.
Paranoid Existence, best I could’ve find, is a relatively fresh Brazilian musical entity. A one-man band, to be precise. Though the liner notes in this neatly designed digipack suggest that a big part of Paranoid Existence’s music on “Sussurros dos Bosques Antigos” was recorded in Argentina. Along with that, the third track by both bands is a live recording from the same festival, Solucións Extremas 7.1, held in Pontevedra, Galiza.
Whatever the geographical truth may be, the sound of Paranoid Existence is the most important aspect of the band. That being said, prepare for the depths of sound commonly labeled as doom/black metal. A slightly elongated description would be that this is a blend of south European and South American old school black metal, with added touches of original doom/death metal. Think of early works by Sarcófago and Rotting Christ or Death SS/Mortuary Drape. Very primal, raw and unpolished.
But there’s a twist! Paranoid Existence is very bass oriented, meaning that bass guitar actually drives this hearse, effects and all. This way, the band’s music reaches the further sonic depths, but also a sort of a sombre and solemn feeling in the slowest pieces. One can almost feel like there’s a cello involved to grant an exalted atmosphere to the proceedings.
And now I’m off to, for me, the main event! Xerión is, at the same time, one of the most consistent and versatile bands around. They’ve set a couple of directions for themselves and are stubbornly keeping to them. However, their creativity is not one-dimensional and is happy to swirl about when imaginative necessity calls.
What I mean by this is that the everlong foundation of Xerión’s sound is buried in the dark and crude black metal, much alike their comrades on this split release, but the “topping” tends to move about according to what inspiration brings about their minds. Of course, Xerión remains recognizable at all times, but avoids repetition and getting stuck in unimaginative dead-ends which often plague the extreme metal scene. Ancient pagan tradition as the primary source from which this duo draws oftentimes needs just as ancient instruments and they are not shy about using them. Just as they are not shy about using keyboards. And it’s exactly the keyboards which took a major role this time. Daga’s performance is stellar, particularly in “O Doce Cantar da Xácia”. Actually, both new tracks could easily take you back to the early days of symphonic black metal, with the second one, “O Deter das Horas”, lurking a bit further down the Celtic, pagan black metal origins.
“Sussurros dos Bosques Antigos” is thirty-two minutes of darkness, split into two perspectives. It gives but a whisper from the ancient forests of Brazil and Galiza, Spain. Paranoid Existence is working hard and there could be a fresh release coming soon (if not you can always track back to the earlier works) and as for Xerión, I’m happy to say the new album is already in my hands and should be spinning soon enough. Or should I build suspense a bit more? Follow these pages and find out!
