Today, Iron Bonehead Productions announces May 1st as the international release date for Black Cilice's highly anticipated seventh album, Votive Fire, on CD and vinyl LP formats.
By now, Black Cilice require no introduction. Undeniably THE most influential raw black metal entity since the first demo releases in 2009, this Portuguese enigma has come to both define and defy that idiom. Unmindful of the present, not looking to the future, and undoubtedly rooted in the past, Black Cilice simply IS, and its vast body of work speaks for itself: challenging, for sure, but transportive and transcendental beyond compare.
While Black Cilice's last foray on the full-length front was 2022's pivotal Esoteric Atavism, the man stayed busy in 2024 with two shorter-length releases: the Atavistic Possessions EP and the Esoteric Stygianism split with Sanguine Relic. Indeed, in recent years, Black Cilice albums have become momentous events, and so it goes with his latest Votive Fire. A key to understanding the album, arguably his most monolithic to date, is to ponder the album's four component song titles: "Released by Fire," "Vows Sworn for Centuries," "Into the Inner Temple," and "Deconstruction of All Realities." Conceptually, and as usual, Votive Fire channels a dark, timeless, and spaceless energy. Past lives, manipulation of energy, isolation, self-knowledge, and transcendence are thematic touchstones here, as the votive fire manipulates both sides of the veil.
Thus, it's perhaps unsurprising that Votive Fire is musically meditative, almost soothing in its shimmering rawness, and builds upon the truly titled Esoteric Atavism with an ever-so-subtle evolution: better or at least more approachable production and (LONG) songs that stand mightily on their own rather than being absorbed into the whole. Certainly, what constitutes "better" production is a moot debate since Black Cilice has always been diligent with its soundfield - nothing is left to chance and everything is how it should sound, form and content in an ouroboros-like symbiosis - but there's an alluring levitation burning within this Votive Fire that's spacious despite its stated spacelessness and layered despite its likewise-stated isolation. To that, the man's riffing touches upon new contours without compromising his musical identity, and the sum result is something that's both BLACK METAL to the core and far outside it.
Of course, black metal doesn't need to "be" more than what it already is, and outsiders are discouraged from trying to create or even process it. But circling above and below is Black Cilice: this Votive Fire may already be inside you...
In the meantime, hear the brand-new track "Released by Fire"
HERE at Iron Bonehead's official YouTube channel. Cover and tracklisting are as follows:
Tracklisting for Black Cilice's Votive Fire
1. Released by Fire [10:25]
2. Vows Sworn for Centuries [7:17]
3. Into the Inner Temple [7:05]
4. Deconstruction of All Realities [8:56]
