Tomorrow Friday May 23 2025 the witch’s cauldron will once again vomit its caustic abominations upon mankind, and CVLT Nation is here to anticipate the carnage for you. Finnish terror-spawning black metal cult Hexerei have even surpassed their own selves in delivering one of the most wretched and caustic black metal masterworks of the year, and you can finally stream it exclusively in full right here a full day ahead of its release:
The deranged trio hail from Finland (city unknown) and their cryptic sonic defilement can be traced back to handful of demos leading up to and including their excellent 2021 debut album “Ancient Evil Spirits”, all of which have made these elusive freaks the very definition of music that speaks for itself, since literally nothing is known or understood about this band outside of their recorded output, and not even a trace of a show or any live activity is known to exist. Yet the band are doing absolutely nothing to create this aura of mystique around themselves and everything which is known about them merely just seems to be exactly what it is: the result of a group of people with a stoic dedication to their recorded output and zero time or need for any antics or side bullshit.
Over the decades Finland have produced a number of legendary black metal acts that need no mention, and Hexerei conceptually and formally seem to belong to the lineage of great Finnish bands which have in recent years embraced the concept of music as a weapon, or as a means to human sense’s end. Read: Concrete Winds, Vorum, Venenum, Hautakammio, and Arnaut Pavle. Insanity weaponized into auditory torment and then delivered with spiteful scorn through deliberate mediums of unlistenable cacophony designed to shatter nerves and devour ear drums. Artifacts of primordial bedlam first recorded and then destroyed and regressed into a lo-fi form of anti music that has no logical purpose other than that of being a sadistic instrument for sensorial punishment.
But due to their absence of live activities and their complete operational silence Hexerei just seem to have abandoned themselves unto a planet entirely their own and to not even really belong to any discernible scene, despite the obvious similarities they have with a small circle of other bands from Finland. They seem hermetically secluded into their own delirious world, seemingly uninfluenced or phased by anything happening around them and just focused on scouring the inner workings of recluse creative delirium to find a cathartic outlet to their own hermetic and fucked up imagination. Sure, many argue that the band’s primary influence is actually Katharsis, and there is no denying it’s probably a big one, but it’s also a lazy statement and simplification that dilutes the band’s true scope into easy comparisons, because the sole “VVorldVVithoutEnd” album by the German legends really appears to be an unmistakable beacon for the Finnish horde. Beyond that what you hear is the result of a truly abominable form of recluse and enigmatic sonic abandon where extremely long running times reveal the torturous and sadistic nature of the music, the blown out and piercing production compounds on top of the absolute hatred for the listener, and then the schizoid songwriting does the rest, insuring for a listen than when it’s over leaves the listener ravaged and dehumanized as they beg for merciful silence hoping to have their hearing restored as soon as possible.
“Realms…..” checks all the boxes for the definition of abomination made into music, and “music” is in turn a really an aleatory and improper term to use here, as the exact opposite of what music should be is instead delivered to the listener, being more like an attempt to show them that pleasure lies solely within the capability of enduring torment and enjoying the respite that comes when the suffering is over, and that is just the definition of sadomasochism, which is seemingly also Hexerei’s idea of “music”.
“Realms…..” officially releases tomorrow Friday May 22 2025 via Sentient Ruin worldwide (get it HERE or HERE).
