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Yesterday, Finnish black metal outfit Shadow's Mortuary announced 31 May as the international release date for its third album, Unohdettu Maa. The album will be released via Purity Through Fire on digipack CD and cassette tape formats; the vinyl LP will be released later this year. The first released track from the upcoming album, "Kahleista Maan", awaits you below.
Shadow's Mortuary is still one of the best-kept secrets in the always-fertile Finnish black metal scene. The quartet formed in 2013 and patiently released two digital-only EPs - Kylmään Hautaan in 2015 and then Tulen Valtakunta in 2018 - before releasing its debut album, also titled Tulen Valtakunta, in 2018. A year later came the band's equally strong second album, Kuoleman Portit, also released by Purity Through Fire. Across these recordings but especially the two full-lengths, Shadow's Mortuary displayed righteously traditional and ever-fiery Finnish black metal - no more, but certainly no less - which possessed all the iron-clad trademarks of that idiom.
While things have been relatively quiet on their front since then, Shadow's Mortuary returns with a righteous fervour with Unohdettu Maa. Translated into English as "The Forgotten Land," Unohdettu Maa "stands for a vision of a place where no religions reign," the band explains. "Without its effect on human behaviour and thinking. With this album, we attack towards Abrahamic religions with full force, carrying the torch of northern heritage and mysticism."
Indeed do they accomplish that in a swift-yet-satisfying 32 minutes here, making their point plain and proud: melancholic melodicism, cold-fire execution, a punkish straightforwardness but never primitively so, and simply strong songs, just like the album's two predecessors. But Unohdettu Maa's true trump card comes in Shadow's Mortuary's increasingly effortless ability to span the epic and the rabble-rousing, bringing forth grandeur in less cliched "epic" ways and, similarly, to sound incensed and headbanging without resorting to "party black metal" corniness. Link
Unohdettu Maa tracklist:
1. Hurmeen Virta
2. Pohjola
3. Teloituksen Aika
4. Haudanlöyhkä
5. Veremme Voima
6. Viimeinen Laukaus
7. Ylistys
8. Kahleista Maan
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