After unleashing a deadly promising demo in 2018, the Parisian black death duo calling themselves Hexekration Rites set to work on their debut EP. To be released this Friday on CD and cassette, Desekration Manifesto capitalizes on Hexekration Rites’ strengths, enfolding their listener into a tightly coiled, blindly dark hellish embrace. The sinewy black death displayed on Desekration Manifesto is alternately fast and conflagratory, or viciously midpaced. With an almost sulphuric atmosphere, one can nearly feel the heat coming from these four tracks—and the so-called introductory track, “Ouverture,” is by no means filler either. Rather Desekration Manifesto stands as twenty-four minutes and thirty seconds of pure and solitary black death strength.
“When I listen to a black metal album I want to hear two things : Riffs and Dangerosity,” proclaims H.R., bassist/vocalist of Hexekration Rites. “Nowadays, there is too much bands that missed those essential points: sometimes there is too many dissonances or melodic parts and everything sounds the same, sometimes the music and the peoples who create it are totally harmless … and sometimes it’s both of them (like post-blackmetal).
“With Hexekration Rites,” continues the bassist, “I want to [go] back to the primal essence of black metal, not only through the music, but also through his spirituality. I’ve said that when I listen to a black metal album I want to hear two things, but there is a third thing that result from the two others : I want to feel inspired by the band, inspired in my capacity of pushing myself out of my own physical, psychological and spiritual limits, and this inspiration comes from one thing: hatred . . . Hatred is the key of power, the trigger of self emancipation, and over all the main source of inspiration for the band’s music and lyrics, and this is what I want to offer to the listeners : a hate (/execration/) ritual (/rites/).”
Regarding the artwork for Desekration Manifesto, H.R. explains: “The album’s artwork symbolize this hate ritual : the sacrifices you have to made (the daggers), the receptacle for your offering (the chalice), the reward you will earn (the flames), and behind this symbolism, the energy you have to put in pursuit of your own purpose.”
Desekration Manifesto
Get Desekration Manifesto this Friday on cassette and CD from Atavism Records.
