UMUR
"Per Flagellum Sanguemque, Tenebras Veneramus" is the 6th full-length studio album by Dutch drone/noise/black metal act Gnaw Their Tongues. The album was released through Crucial Blast Records in November 2011. As always sole member Mories handles everything on the album.
The music on the album is eerie sounding noise/drone, and this time around it´s like Mories has prioritized the noise element. The album is very atmospheric, but in an unpleasant, cold and tortured way. The music of Gnaw Their Tongues have always been hard on the ears and not easily digested, but if you ask me the emphasis on the noise side of the project´s sound makes "Per Flagellum Sanguemque, Tenebras Veneramus" one of the harder releases in the project´s discography to appreciate. Most tracks on the 57:58 minutes long album exceed the 6 minutes mark and as rythmic foundation and hooks are sparse (which is not unusual for Gnaw Their Tongues, but here more than ever), it´s an album that requires attention and possibly many spins. Even then it´s still an extremely challenging listen. The sections with spoken samples and classical instrumentation stand out to me.
I´ll never question the musical genious of Mories, which is again obvious when listening to "Per Flagellum Sanguemque, Tenebras Veneramus", but I must confess that this particular album doesn´t do that much for me. It´s so hard to penetrate and grasp that it becomes tiresome work instead of listening pleasure to me. People more into noise will probably enjoy this more than I do though. Personally I hope Mories will put more black metal/drone elements into the music again on the next release, to increase the memorability factor. Despite my issues with the album it´s obviously a quality release and a 3 - 3.5 star (65%) rating is warranted.