It took a while for me to check out this newer black industrial/psych/noise ensemble, but now that I've obtained their Garden Of Forking Ways Lp and this limited-edition tape I've become extremely enamored of their gritty Stygian psychedelia. Descent Into The Maelstrom came out on Cd-r on a small Peruvian label last year, and was subsequently reissued on cassette by the guys in Locrian through their Land Of Decay imprint in a tiny edition of ninety-three copies; any fan of the abstract, blackened ambience and experimental metal that their label is known for will probably dig this, too.

The opening track "Adrift at Sea" is a relatively short atmospheric track with delicate looped guitar melodies swirling around surges of deep, rumbling drones and distorted noise, and demonic mutterings and fuzz-coated shrieks drifting like languid smoke wisps through the haze. The next track "Tempest's Edge" is where the band really stretch out, constructing a nightmare soundscape writhing with far-off black metal guitar leads, random vocal noises and more looped minor key melodies, loads of delay and echo and other effects blanketing the recording, soaking this in a thick, cloying cough-syrup fog. Crushing subterranean drones rise and fall deep below the surface, shifting and growing in intensity and volume over the duration of the song, like distant blasts of ambient doom in the vein of Black Boned Angel or early Sunn O))). Bizarre ululations, unintelligible whispering and chanting voices appear, giving this the feel of a Chthonic cult ritual backed by an experimental doom metal group. By the time that they reach " Mouth of the Beast", the last song on the a-side, those grinding metallic drones are almost completely burned off as the band moves into more ambient territory, soft wavering drones and light crackling static drifting beneath echoing chants and monstrous roars while fragments of woodwinds float upwards, and a slow percussive thump appears as the sound morphs into a kind of acid-drenched power electronics at the very end.

On "Walls of the Abyss", Cultus Sabbati further explore that spacey PE/ambient sound through the use of rumbling synth tones, heavily distorted and delayed black metal-style shrieks and hissing, glacial throb, peals of brutal feedback, then drifting into the minimal abyssal ambience of "Beneath the Waves" before finally closing with the title track, another warped, lysergic soundscape filled with howling prayers, the hum of amplified feedback, washes of blighted heaviness and cackling voices, with some twangy meandering guitar appearing later on, giving parts of this a strange, sun-baked haziness.

A fantastic cassette of infernal black psych, highly recommended if yer into the likes of Lustmord, MZ.412, and the black ambience of artists like Kerovnian, Raven's Bane, Hyios, Metaconqueror and Dapnom.