MAVORIM
Silent Leges Inter Arma

180g Vinyl, thick cardboard, matt finish.
Black wax

For nearly eight years now, the defiant warlord otherwise known as Baptist has put forth a stark, austere style of black metal under the MAVORIM banner. With a couple demos, splits, and then two albums 2018's Silent Leges Inter Arma debut album and 2020's Axis Mundi - through PURITY THROUGH FIRE, MAVORIM has swiftly come to define the new breed of German black metal that hearkens back to the old guard: Teutonic to the bone, harsh and harrowing yet heralding triumph.

And while 2020 did see the release of Axis Mundi AND two splits with comrades TOTENWACHE and AD MORTEM, Baptist wastes no time keeping the conflagrating momentum going with MAVORIM's third full-length, Non Omnis Moriar. No more but definitely no less, Non Omnis Moriar is definitive MAVORIM through and through: cold, cutting, and martial but breathing passion and poignancy at every twisted turn. Whereas the preceding Axis Mundi saw Baptist exploring more epic and atmospheric textures, here does MAVORIM kick up the intensity once again, fully locked-in and reeking of bloodlust - BUT that insanely catchy songwriting that's come to earmark the band has been carried over here, and given a palpitating shot of adrenaline. And even with a runtime of 48 minutes, the ten songs comprising Non Omnis Moriar seem to fly by in a flash, and you're left licking your wounds on the battlefield...if you survive Baptist's berserker fury.

Black Vinyl

By now, the name MAVORIM should be more than familiar to those who follow the crimes of PURITY THROUGH FIRE. Since the band's formation in 2014, mainman Baptist has restlessly and relentlessly pursued his stark, austere style of black metal, resulting in three full-lengths and seven other shorter-length works. Collectively, MAVORIM have quickly come to define the new breed of German black metal that hearkens back to the old guard: Teutonic to the bone, harsh and harrowing yet heralding triumph. 

And so the battle wages on with MAVORIM's fourth album, Ab Amitia Pulsae. Immediately and dramatically, this is classic MAVORIM - charging hard onto the battlefield, bloody swords raised, rough-yet-rousing melodicism to the fore, with Baptist's gruff, exhortative throat leading the charge - but as Ab Amitia Pulsae plays on, new vistas of their signature sound are revealed. While still qualitatively a black metal record, MAVORIM's fourth album displays deft layering of sounds, particularly Baptist's subtle-yet-concerted integration of keyboards and other synth sounds, altogether adding an exceptionally dynamic contour to otherwise-straightforward aggression. Further, his guitar leads display a much wider swath of feeling as well as texture, each song seemingly featuring something quite new in the greater MAVORIM dialect, while drumming co-conspirator Valfor occasionally add his choral voices to poignant effect. And it's gripping and urgent all the way through to the 53-minute album's end...again and again and again.

At times tragic, at times folkloric, melancholy giving way to bloodlust, Ab Amitia Pulsae proves once again that MAVORIM are uniquely adept at fully coloring within the lines of black metal with the boldest and bravest hues.