Iku-Turso - Ikuinen Kirous LP

black wax ltd.200

Forming in 2017 and soon releasing their debut album, The Great Tower, that same year, IKU-TURSO have quietly become a force in the ever-fertile Finnish black metal scene (vocalist Lafawijn hails from the Netherlands). The band includes members with a vast array of underground experience, spanning all sorts of extreme metal styles, and a couple of members currently retain membership in labelmates ORDER OF NOSFERAT. As such, IKU-TURSO's sound is far from strict "Finnish black metal" that's come to be the definition the past couple of decades. Rather, the band cast their gaze back to the cold, dark days of mid '90s Scandinavia, and render it with a (darkly) dramatic flair.

And so it comes to its fullest fruition with Ikuinen Kirous, IKU-TURSO's latest offering and first for PURITY THROUGH FIRE. Like a long-lost relic on Wounded Love or Samoth's Nocturnal Art Productions, Ikuinen Kirous reaps a windswept drama both mystically sensual and scabrously alien. Continuing to maximize the addition of keyboardist F.Nightside (as well as his occasional clean vocals), IKU-TURSO blanket their dungeonic surge with an aristocratic air that's somewhere between funeral fog and orchestral bombast, never quite going into full-on sympho-BM mode nor necessarily shying away from its most plausible elements. Above all, the bands songwriting stays within the epic-yet-linear, building upon themes in the olde way whilst never forgetting that it's black METAL - riffs, riffs, RIFFS. And then, 37 minutes later and Ikuinen Kirous has come to completion, feeling far vaster than that compact runtime (but one ideal for full vinyl immersion). IKU-TURSO are coming to a church near you!

1. Nkotimsefuopua 04:20  
2. Ebenezer 04:43  
3. Adinkra 04:12   Show lyrics
4. Een zucht van verdriet 05:56  
5. Gauss 05:42  
6. Noirthoren 05:00  
7. Thornspawn Chalice 07:22
playing time  37:15