- Country: Sweden
- Style: Heavy metal / Doom metal
- Label: Rise Above Records / Metal Blade Records
- Release date: 18 October 2010
Candles, incense, a slow procession into the nave. Opus Eponymous opens with “Deus Culpa”, a short instrumental prelude with a Latin name, more the start of a service than of a metal album, and that is the trick of the whole record: Satanic hymns dressed in vestments, sung in a voice so soft it almost apologises for the words.
The music behind it looks back to the late seventies and early eighties, all lightly overdriven guitars and melodies you can hum on the bus. There is very little weight in the conventional sense. The menace comes from contrast, the sweet chorus of “Ritual” carrying a devotion of a very different kind, the slow sway of “Satan Prayer” played almost like a lullaby. The players keep their names to themselves, which only adds to the feeling that you are watching a ceremony rather than a band.
The record is short and ends with the instrumental “Genesis”, a closing hymn that leaves the crypt door half open. Few debuts of that decade cast a longer shadow.
Best tracks:
Ritual
Elizabeth
Stand by Him
Satan Prayer
Author’s rating: 8.6/10
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