Today we have the honor of premiering an exclusive full stream of the upcoming self-titled 10″ vinyl EP from Portuguese black metal mortifier MONS VENERIS, a key member of the auld Black Circle and a massively prolific font of darkness between twenty demos, four albums, five EPs and 21 split releases since ~2003. They’ve not settled or become defined by any sort of ease or satisfaction in those seventeen years, theirs is a wisened haunt still experimenting with primal forms of subversion and, forever without bounds. This two song ~21 minute EP manifests as naturally raw black metal, a horrifying death worship unwilling to bend into a predictable, machined form and inverted towards doom. We begin clawing at the moldering ground in the dark, flinging bits of a smashed cenotaph and its lichen-stained pebbles under moonlight as the sheer nihil of “Ritual of Neverending Doom” serves its brutal churn before the exhumation and ritual conjure proceeds. Drowned synth and skull-grating LLN worthy guitar horrors presage the curse that awaits upon the makeshift altar, within the centerpiece: “A Scythe Infested With Plagues…”, its steadily escalating disgust becomes a lung-popping, crawling-on-the-floor screaming rant of possession that will prove stirring. A painful but necessary ritual and a fine example of rawest black metal concerned with morbid atmosphere and ugliest attack. Make sure you grab a copy of ‘Mons Veneris’ from Signal Rex/Harvest of Death on January 1st, 2021. Thanks to Mons Veneris, Signal Rex and their representation for the chance to feature this EP. Scroll down for the full stream of ‘Mons Veneris’ — The project doesn’t do interviews but the artist has offered this illuminating damnation for the premiere:

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“The most recent Mons Veneris 10” mLP was composed in isolation and in a state of productive depression. When “humanity” is feeling the uncertainty of these times, when the ropes tighten around the necks, a flame sparks and dances to express weird ideas and shades of Darkness… some weird forms and dimensions of Satan!

A feeling of cold arises, from below these uncertain grounds that were so familiar to “humanity”, as madness consumes the masses. In a trembling, gloomy Darkness a Scythe of Fire is sharpened in remembrance of the small role of Light amongst the immense Darkness beyond all existences: the Grandeur of Death!

This 10″ mLP is about Doom, the destruction of dreams and goals… and the ruin of personal grandiosity so present in humans. All is eventually to be shed to Nothingness… to Void… back to the Darkest places: inside Satan!”

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Per the press release:

HARVEST OF DEATH, a division of SIGNAL REX, is proud to present a new, self-titled 10” EP from MONS VENERIS.

Alongside labelmates IRAE, MONS VENERIS are one of the most oldest names in Portuguese black metal – and also one of the most prolific. Feverishly so, in fact, driving deep into the delirium that only they know, MONS VENERIS’ recordings are many and varied; from dungeonic chaos to hysteric thrashing to even haunting minimalism and plenty of ritualistic points in between, the mysterious entity always keep the legions guessing.

Such is the case with their Mons Veneris 10” EP. Comprising two 10-plus-minute side-long tracks, MONS VENERIS’ latest conjuring from the void tells a tale that takes two different paths, and both equally challenging. On Side A is “Ritual of a Neverending Doom,” which slowly and eerily builds around creepshow organ and tribal drums, the tortured voices and guitars animalistic but far from fully improvisational; in fact, the directive is clear here, hypnotically gnawing at the listener, and mental meltdown is assured. On Side B is “A Scythe Infested with Plagues…,” hypnosis begins with a filthy, clanging pulse and then downshifts into an equally filthy march laced with no small amount of misery and melancholia; that that misery & melancholia then transform into wounded melodicism is surprising…or perhaps not, given the band’s always-defiant nature.

Despite the Portuguese Black Circle’s demise, its embers are forever stoked by MONS VENERIS as they present a new torch for self-immolation!

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