Jewelcase Audio Compact Disk, with gold PMS print, limited to 100 copies.
A most mysterious black metal entity Mallitiae certainly seems to be – after releasing its debut EP back in 2019, this act went to ground and re-emerged in mid-2025 with second release / first album "Rugitus Aeternus Labe In Abyssum Irent", a work of extreme occult darkness. Two long and sprawling tracks, each over 15 minutes in length, meander and twist through the labyrinths of Hell, and a more suffocating and oppressive world, steeped in corruption and decay, you'd be hard put to find wherever in the universe you may be. Whoever is behind Mallitiae, be it a solo or a group act, has certainly put considerable thought and craft in creating this particular vision of Hell with raw steaming BM guitars, keyboards, various effects and found sounds, topped with a mix of bloodcurdling demonic vocals, screams and cries, and demented spoken-voice recordings reciting a litany in Latin. In its twisting nature and experimental approach to songwriting and music-making, the entire album is very reminiscent of the work done by Swedish black / death metal legends Abruptum and by some of the nuttier, experimental bands in the French Black Legions, independently of one another, way back in the 1990s.
The album leads off with "Doloribus Partem" (Latin: "Part of Pains") which immediately plunges listeners into one of the more stifling and claustrophobic cul-de-sac passages of Hell, where the very atmosphere seethes and hisses with malevolence, and the darkness almost appears to be alive. Groans and moans, sighs and bleatings, growls and shrieks alternate with blasts of steaming noise guitar storm, before making for unearthly and uneasy space-ambient droning effects and sinister church organ melody. When black metal does appear, it is cacophonous scrabbly (and sometimes howling) guitar and pounding drums. Near the end of the track, strange robotic voices chant and declaim in Latin, praising their dark lord and giving the track a sinister and deranged feel.
"Pars mortis" ("Part of Death") is no less terrifying with its death-rattle cries, the bristling noise underlying what passes for music, and the fragmented nature of the track itself where noise effects and tonal snippets come and go, and the one constant throughout is the darkness as an active entity, in which distant voices of damned souls can be heard. The black metal music tends to be more improvised and less structured than on the previous track, this approach allowing the guitars and the percussion freedom to pursue their individual paths. The demented Latin-chanting priest voice appears again, as if to offer relief, though in the deepest part of Hell where Mallitiae operate/s, there can be no relief, only more pain and torture. And pain and torture a-plenty are present, to judge from the cries and groans and yelps that emanate from the dark background. About halfway through, Mallitiae finally decide/s to play some actual instrumental raw BM, and the music is powerful and forceful if melancholy. Towards the end of the track, the screams and the chanting increase in intensity and mania amid the noisy chaos and drone storm kicked up by the guitars and drums.
Whatever evil ritual is being enacted here is sure to fill your head and mind with dense sonic disorder and a foreboding sense of the darkness coming at you from the music and threatening to swallow you psychically if not physically. The core raw BM style on this album is embellished with influences from dark ambient, noise, perhaps some industrial and certainly improvised music. The album's crude production may be deliberate but it adds a sense of claustrophobic terror.
The sprawling, improvised nature of the music won't suit everyone's taste, and some of the chanting and shrieking vocals may strike listeners as a bit cheesy. Those parts of the album featuring the Latin-language chanting can sound silly as well, though as the album continues, the chanting becomes more deranged and hysterical. The entire atmosphere of the album though, in its Stygian foulness and air of thick decay and depravity, is vivid and may be the one thing listeners take away long after the album finishes.
Sample: youtube.com/watch?v=QXb5F4axLcs
