Svabhavat - Black Mirror Reflection - LP

SVABHAVAT are a brand-new entity hailing from the American Pacific Northwest. A duo, they describe their music as "Ritualistic Necromancy Black Metal," and indeed is that demi-tag apt: across the band's Black Mirror Reflection debut, one will find the refreshingly old stench of archetypal Darkthrone, Mayhem, and especially Kartharsis. No elegiac odes to the Cascadians or sun-drenched bliss masquerading as "black metal" here; SVABHAVAT offer nothing but cold 'n' cruel intensity, violently at odds with their region's reigning paradigm. Yet, for a sound so stridently traditional, SVABHAVAT offer unique twists of the knife across Black Mirror Reflection, its self-imposed boundaries paradoxically offering freedom. Undoubtedly, those noble influences form their foundation - as they do for countless black metal bands, past and present - but there's a devilish delirium the duo delve into across their debut album which suggests aesthetic aims beyond the tried & true (or "tired & tr00"). Almost deceptively so, Black Mirror Reflection in fact reflects a hovering, haunting melodicism that poignantly penetrates one's subsconcious but never without smacking of the saccharine; simply put, SVABHAVAT's ceaseless(ly sinister) intensity bleeds through at any speed, which is all the more suprising given their Spartan composition as a two-piece. And speaking of compositions, the six comprising this 37-minute Black Mirror Reflection are mini-epics in their own right, offering expectionally linear narratives exceedingly daubed in the grim and ghoulish, the total package taut and swiftly satisfying. Intoxication through damnation, salvation through incineration...SVABHAVAT offer a dread path ahead. Step forward and stare into their Black Mirror Reflection.