Here we are confronted with a premiere of “Faithfully Reduced to Ashes” the second pre-release song from French Satanic black metal band NOVAE MILITIAE‘s second album ‘Topheth‘ which releases via Goathorned Productions on digipak CD this September 15th. The stream follows an excerpt from the lyrics and links to pre-order the album. A vinyl issue is planned through the fine folks at Sentient Ruin in the near future. Thanks goes to Goathorned Productions, the band, and their representation for this early preview.

“… O Satan, hear our prayers. On this land, we sing our praises. We offer you the sons of Jerusalem to sacrifice. And wane the divine light. We are above Christ. We are among the devoted weeping crowd. The curses have altered the prayers. These are the last breaths of holy beliefs. Weakness, bounded to our impure masses. They regret the past and suffer the present. For you Satan, in Jerusalem, sacrifices occurs. Putting an end to their bitter and painful life…“

Goathorned Productions BigCartel

Novae Militiae Facebook

---

Per the press release:

On September 15^th internationally, GOATHORNED PRODUCTIONS is proud to present NOVAE MILITIAE‘s highly anticipated second album, Topheth.

NOVAE MILITIAE was founded in 2009. In a wish to remain anonymous and develop a mysterious aura in line with its vision of black metal, the band has never revealed who the members involved in this project were.

The first demo EP, Affliction of the Divine, was released on the label Nihilward at the end of 2011. This one, limited to 500 copies, is now sold-out. A tape reissue was published in 2015 by the label From the Dark Past, limited to 99 copies. This first recording aroused a certain interest in the orthodox black metal scene despite low promotion.

The first NOVAE MILITIAE album, Gash’khalah – the destroyer in the Tree of Death – was released in 2017 by GOATHORNED PRODUCTIONS and consisted of eight tracks across a total duration of 55 minutes. It was published as a digipack CD limited to 300 copies. More accomplished than the previous EP, Gash’khalah established NOVAE MILITIAE as an essential band to the initiated. Here, the band took on a more brutal orientation, while atmospheres became more developed and transcendental. In 2018, the labels Sentient Ruin Laboratories and Argento Records joined forces to release the vinyl version of Gash’khalah in a double-LP version limited to 300 copies that came in a heavy gatefold jacket and an etched side D.

Now, at long last, NOVAE MILITIAE revealed their second full-length work, Topheth, once again through the auspices of GOATHORNED PRODUCTIONS. Suitably titled, Topheth means “the place to burn” in Hebrew, but is also the place of human sacrifice to the god Moloch in the Bible. Indeed burning, both physically and especially spiritually, this second NOVAE MILITIAE album consists of six stout tracks: four of black metal – orthodox in composition, religious in their fervor, blindingly brilliant each one – and two of ritual/dark ambient, altogether making for an immersive 54-minute experience. On this occasion, two tracks from the early Affliction of the Divine EP were re-recorded, as the production was not completely satisfactory at that time, but they duly contribute to a unified whole, which underlines how powerful NOVAE MILITIAE‘s vision was from the very beginning. For the rest of Topheth, the band studiously worked on darker and  more complex atmospheres in connection with their investment in the Left Hand Path. The result? Arguably, the strongest statement made in orthodox/religious black metal in over a decade, both revitalizing the form and reshaping it to NOVAE MILITAE‘s design.

The release of Topheth is planned for September 15^th, 2020 on GOATHORNED PRODUCTIONS in a digipack CD version limited to 300 copies. A vinyl version will also be released later on by Sentient Ruin Laboratories.

---