Shadow's Mortuary
Tulen Valtakunta (LTD ED)

Criminally, SHADOW'S MORTUARY are still one of the best-kept secrets in the always-fertile Finnish black metal scene. The quartet formed in 2013, and patiently released two digital-only EPs - Kylmään Hautaan in 2015, and then Tulen Valtakunta in 2018 - before releasing their debut album, also titled Tulen Valtakunta, in 2018. That album was initially released on cassette through the cult Worship Tapes label, but soon did PURITY THROUGH FIRE step in to release it on a wider scale on CD format. A year later came the band's equally strong second album, Kuoleman Portit, also released by PURITY THROUGH FIRE. Across these recordings but especially the two full-lengths, SHADOW'S MORTUARY displayed righteously traditional and ever-fiery Finnish BLACK METAL - no more, but certainly no less - that possessed all the iron-clad trademarks of that idiom.

While things have been relatively quiet on their front since then, SHADOW'S MORTUARY return with a righteous fervor with Unohdettu Maa. Translated into English as "The Forgotten Land," Unohdettu Maa "stands for a vision of a place where no religions reign," the band explain, "Without its effect on human behavior and thinking. With this album, we attack towards Abrahamic religions with full force, carrying the torch of northern heritage and mysticism." Indeed do they accomplish that in a swift-yet-satisfying 32 minutes here, making their point plain and proud: melancholic melodicism, cold-fire execution, a punkish straightforwardness but never primitively so, and simply strong songs, just like the album's two predecessors. But Unohdettu Maa's true trump card comes in SHADOW'S MORTUARY's increasingly effortless ability to span the epic and the rabble-rousing, bringing forth grandeur in less cliched "epic" ways and, similarly, to sound incensed and headbanging without resorting to "party black metal" corniness.