Label: Iron Bonehead Records
Band: Pa Vesh En
Origin: Belarus
Pa Vesh En has been remarkably busy in 2018, releasing a demo, an EP and a split record. Now the mysterious entity adds the full-length ‘Church of Bones’ to the mix, which is a dark and lugubrious record full of unholy black metal in the darkest form.
Hailing from Belarus is a fact that simply adds to the charm and aura of darkness surrounding this grim sounding act. The title is an obvious reference to the Ossuary, the underground places filled with bones and remnants of the deceased. Something that today fills us with horror and dread, but what once was simply a practical solution to an issue of space.
The lo-fi recording style makes the sound a gurgling, swampy mess of dark and disgusting consistency. Its miserable expression is very much the forming aspect of the art that is ‘The Wilderness of Cursed Souls’. Mad ramblings, pitiful utterings and gibbering wails fill the air as the song unfolds into a wall of sound. Eerie, high notes soar through the clouds of distortion, linking up the sound of Pa Vesh En with the DSBM experience. At times this falls into pure ramblings, like during the messy ‘A Funeral Procession’, but that is part of the expression.
You are almost forced to up the volume, as the hazy sound veritably obscures the nuances and horror of the music on ‘La Vaise Macabra’. This shapes a sound that becomes more and more ambient black metal orientated, molding into a shapeless mass at times. Yet, this record is sticky in its own persistent way and nothing really escapes the wrath of Pa Vesh En on this dark release. Make sure to check it out.