The RMR crew liked this metaphor of the red door. The entrance you never want to use, but some compulsive urge takes you there no matter what. It is a bit like this overused Hotel California theme1 of long times past. You can run, but you can never leave, that kind of thing. And wherever you go, suddenly you see that red door appearing out of the poisoned mist. Do you remember the age-old movie The Shining? ‘Xactly, there is a feeling of dread with them doors, colored any which way, that you should never enter.
And it’s not only that. Once you enter The House With The Red Door, you know that you’re stuck. A place that’s both succulent and terrifying. And you will visit all rooms until the green door beckons you. A journey that can only end in purgatory. So, welcome to Suffering‘s depressing soundscape.
Things Seen But Always Hidden, the band called their newest concoction. It is a place of anguish, of impending doom, expressed in an uneasy blend of Black and Doom Black Metal and haunted by extended atmospherics. Some Post Black melodic interludes sparsely appear in certain lost places. Everything else falls prey to morose atmospherics and the wretchedly agonized and ever monotonous screams of one Sturmgeist Fornicator Insultus2, the vocalist. Apart from a few lustful moments in the middle of the record, this is all caustic and raw suffering writ large. True, you get a spoken sentence here and there, male or female, but apart from that, depression is the name of the game on Things Seen.
And that leaves us with a barebones structure of halfway connected soundbites whose only glue seems to be the walls of the house of horrors depicted on the album cover. Bits of dissonance, together with the occasional proper Black Metal intrusion, careen aimlessly about this desolate soundscape. Yet, no powerful and fear-inducing riffing, no drums from the deepest recesses of Gehenna will make sure you understand that your blackened soul is fucked. Perhaps, except for the first track, which somewhat lurches in that very direction. And still, all of that loud screaming, huffing, and puffing forms part of a wild ride to reach that green door. You know, the one you should probably not open. Ever.
Occult Black Metal. This is the style this band calls their own. But again, you’ll find nothing ritualistic on that record, none of that kind of excellence other Black Metallers dispense with gusto. Apart from loosely crawing what the adepts of the Christian mind control squad put before us, you’ll find no demon, no evil spirit injecting the dread of the eons from the 10 circles of hell into you. In other words, the RMR crew missed the occult lurking in the abject recesses of this record.
You see, this zine covered records that truly ooze horror and trepidation. To the point that you start breaking out the salt after a while, and throw miscellaneous pinches over your shoulder. Things Seen But Always Hidden isn’t one of them. It tells a story, but without eliciting a resounding emotional response. The record sounds as if the script lost itself somewhere in The Chamber of Breathtaking Delights.
The outcome is a conglomerate of sonic items and ideas, loosely connected to Black Metal and without real power. Instead, this gaggle of tracks leans more into merciless atmospheric doom than it probably should. And out of that, you’ll indeed find a sense of darkness and desolation. As in doom ‘n’ gloom, but certainly not stemming from – and I quote – “…furious violence and intimidating domination.” You’ll need real demons for that and a sense of purpose. And neither ingredient is apparent on this record.
Record Rating: 5/10 | Label: Apocalyptic Witchcraft | Web: Official Band Site
Release Date: 28 November 2025