After shedding its early metalcore skin to reveal a darker heart in 2008, Italian quartet The Secret has latterly proved as good as its name, with new three-track EP Lux Tenebris (Southern Lord) being the band’s first recorded output for six years.

As such, it’s an eagerly-awaited release, and from the first titanic fuzz of opener ‘Vertigo’ it’s not hard to see why. Michael Bertoldini’s spiked, cold guitar lines pierce the ears, whilst the increasingly heavy rhythm section helps to set the scene. As the pace quickens halfway in, it serves merely to heighten an unbearable tension reflecting the dizzying panic of the condition the track describes.

The ensuing ‘The Sorrowful Void’ continues the swirling chaos but initially at breakneck speed, a Blackened Death crash which pummels the senses, Marco Coslovich’s dry rasp buried in the mix and giving the slicing, swerving guitars and Tommaso Corte’s monstrous drums centre-stage. The pensive mid-section remains pregnant with horror, whilst an ability to vary structure is displayed by a murderous yet Doom-laden third movement.

This tantalising glimpse into the band’s future ends with ‘Cupio Dissolvi’, at first another brutal assault with blackened riffs zipping through the ears like razor blades on skateboards, the bass and drums a trammelling army of death. The tempo again slows to a devilish crawl, full of sinister import and minds hell-bent on self-sacrifice,with a tearing vocal building the claustrophobia toward a delicious, nerve-shredding coda.

Spending so many years away from the studio often results in a certain amount of trepidation from a band’s fanbase upon its return to the fray. In this case there’s no need. The Secret has returned, bolder and more powerful than ever, with Lux Tenebris whetting the appetite for a full-length in the near future.

8.0/10.0

PAUL QUINN