Triumphant return of Profane Burial.
After leaving us without news since their last album in 2016, the band comprising Kjetil Ytterhus (vocals/keyboards), André Aaslie (bass/guitar, ex-Abyssic, ex-Funeral) and Bjørn Dugstad Rønnow (drums, Borknagar, Trollfest) announces the release of My Plateau, their second album, via Crime Records.
The album kicks off with the majestic but hellish My Plateau, a self-titled composition where growls quickly join the furious rhythm and its scathing leads that swirl ceaselessly. An ominous break slows the sound down, but it soon ignites again, before a final scream leads into Moribund, where the tone becomes darker and more worrying, while the harmonics fuel this permanent anguish. The track is interspersed with soaring keyboard interventions that calm the atmosphere, but it becomes very dark again on Fragments Of Dirge and its furious but relatively melodic riffs that are supported by extremely effective drums. The center of the track is inhabited by a transcendent lead part, which awakens the theatrical orchestrations, just as on Righteous Indoctrination where they become much more present, flying above this raw and merciless rhythmic while the vocalist rants. A gentle final note sweeps us away on Disambiguate Eradication and its quietude, which quickly fades away to make way for the frantic rhythmic and imposing keyboards that frame our march into darkness with cutting guitars, before letting the terrifying Horror Code close this compendium of darkness with much slower, martial tones, which only accelerate on command from the drums, maintaining the throbbing, crushing approach right up to the last moment.
Although their break was relatively long, the members of Profane Burial have not rested on their laurels by reactivating the machine! In no time at all, My Plateau sweeps us away into its terrifying universe filled with darkness, letting its six compositions bewitch us.
90/100