Abruptum

Abruptum

Vi Sonus Veris Nigrae Malitiaes

Profound Lore

Official reissue of Abruptum’s notorious third album Vi Sonus Veris Nigrae Malitiaes. Originally released in 1996 on infamous cult black metal label Full Moon Productions, this Swedish band were always seen as one of the most bizarre, strangest, and otherworldly black metal entities. Masterminded by the late IT, known as one of the most unique black metal musicians ever, the band was christened by black metal godfather Euronymous of Mayhem (who released the first two of their albums on his Deathlike Silence Productions label) as the “audial essence of pure black evil.”  This album is the only Abruptum release that solely features IT, it’s true visionary, on his own without the assistance of any other musicians. Recorded in 1995 at Peter Tagtgren’s Abyss Studios, in what ended up being the most bizarre recording session Tagtgren has ever endured, the album consists of one long improvised track clocking in at an hour’s length, written and performed solely by IT. It consists of blackened horror-scapes, torturous sounds of noisy droning guitars, never ending feedback, thunderous pounding drums, and painful screams and moans of agony and despair.

Abruptum

VI Sonus Veris Nigrae Malitaes

Nuclear War Now

***Though they bore little sonic resemblance to their peers at the time, the story of black metal cannot be told without reference to Abruptum. Founded in 1989 by Tony “IT” Särkkä, a pillar of the early Swedish scene who, in addition to Abruptum, also played in Opthamalia and Vondur, among other bands, Abruptum rode the crest of black metal’s second wave. With their debut album on Deathlike Silence Productions carrying the catalog number Anti-Mosh 04, Abruptum was one of the first bands—preceded only by Merciless and Mayhem—to appear on the label that would come to define black metal and export it outside of Scandinavia. Even back then, Särkkä’s credentials were unimpeachable. Before forming Abruptum, he had been in bands with his high school friend Dan Swanö, who later formed Edge of Sanity and opened Unisound Studio, and who credits Särkkä for guiding him into the more extreme corners of the underground scene. Abruptum had little in common with the furious riffs and blast beats that typically characterized the genre; Abruptum was more an entity, a presence, than a band. “The audial essence of pure black evil,” an expression, attributed to Euronymous, that adorns some of the band’s album covers, captures the intent of Abruptum. In many respects, the formlessness of their music conjures a darker atmosphere than more traditional black metal, which still bears remnants of the rock music from which it evolved. Abruptum, by contrast, was a ritualistic distillation of the genre’s core elements. Like a dissected cadaver, splayed...