If you ever need reminding how insular Metal has become, and how incomprehensible it can seem from the outside, tell a non-Metal friend that “Suicidal Black Metal” is an acknowledged sub-genre term and see how they respond.

Pestilential Shadows play the kind of slow, “atmospheric” Black Metal that trades aggression and chaos in for bleakness and stark melody. Long, meandering compositions based around sinister riffing and mournful shrieked vocals, Ephemeral’s (Séance Records) seven tracks offer no surprises but accomplish what they set out for with aplomb. This is music than can become dull and repetitive quickly, but Pestilential Shadows have a solid grasp of bleak melody which keeps their songs engaging and memorable – the soloing in particular is quite beautiful at times, and their riffs are genuinely catchy in the way that Black Metal bands often fail to be.

The biggest drawback to Ephemeral is the same as that of many of other Extreme Metal records – that there’s little to really set it apart from the other albums in its genre.  With a defined, formalised style and such a narrow emotional range, it’s inevitable that there’s little to distinguish Pestilential Shadows from their peers.  Without fresh ideas or a blurring of genre-boundaries only high quality could cause them to stand apart, and though they’re competent to a fault they’re not quite good enough for that. As lazy a journalistic cop-out as this is, Ephemeral is ultimately one of those if-you-like-this-kind-of-thing, this-is-the-kind-of-thing-you’ll-like albums – a worthy listen for anyone already sold on this very specific style, but not good enough to draw attention beyond its automatic fan-base.

6.5/10

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RICHIE HR