I’m not familiar with California’s Valdur other than they started out as a standard USBM band back about a decade ago and this very site reviewed their 2009 split with Fellow Californians Lightning Swords of Death, whom  i have heard. So I was in fact expecting some black metal, but what I got was an impressive, nastier, churning miasmal, black death combo that would be right at home on Profound Lore Records or Dark Descent Records.

Divine Cessation would sit nicely along side the likes of Auroch or Abyssal, as it has a cavernous, chaotic prose and deep, distant, imposing roars with just a hint black metal atmosphere. The Incantation-y lurches and blasts meld with discordant, murky tremolo blasts, that are black metal in backbone, but rip with the stench of putrid and ugly death metal dissonance.

There is little to no memorability (and no more Scandinavian song titles), just a muddy, dark ritualistic pulse and throb as heard in the crushing 7 minute title track (one of three tracks clocking in over 7 minutes) or the aptly named “Seething Disgust”. The shorter “Doomed” changes things up (or down?) a bit with a crawling instrumental that has some Incantation-isms, before another short track, “Plague Born of a Dying Star” seems to have a little more influence of the the band’s earlier style with  some screams and some higher tuned riffs.

Almost 8 minute Closer” Potent Black Orb” finds the perfect balance between the tidal murk of the first 4 tracks though it wastes the middle couple and final or so minutes with electronic ambient nonsense. Still, Divine Cessation is a killer release from a band that has made a successful transition between styles with impressive results.

[Visit the band's website]

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