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Music

Is Black Cilice Primed to Release the Best Album of 2015? Listen to "Prayer From Beyond" and Decide

The best Portuguese black metal band ever is releasing a new album.

Photo courtesy of Black Cilice

It's probably a little too early to be calling out 2015's best metal albums, but I'll be damned if Black Cilice hasn't already felled the majority of the competition. Between the Portuguese purist's upcoming new album and new releases from Misthyrming and Goat Semen in the pipeline, the bar for extreme metal is already pretty much set for next year. Of course there will be plenty more contenders stomping out the gates of hell, but just listen to the following track, "Prayer From Beyond," and tell me it isn't the dopest black metal recording you've heard since the new Blut Aus Nord record dropped:

Black Cilice has labored in the shadows for a good few years, releasing an outright deluge of well-regarded demos and two killer full-lengths before arriving at this new peak. The anonymous one-person project has reliably recorded top-tier raw black metal with a heavy debt to the Second Wave and clear, clever melodic sensibilities—sure, it's lo-fi as a motherfucker, but the songs themselves are beautiful in their primal power. Mysteries, the band's third LP and first for Iron Bonehead, is out January 30, and will inevitably be the one that introduces Black Cilice to the masses (or at least, to everyone on Nathan Birk's promo list). It's about damn time.

Kim Kelly is summoning the night on Twitter.