SECOND PRESS. LAST COPY!

Altare Productions is proud to present the debut album of CANDELABRUM, Necrotelepathy. Hailing from the raw black metal hotbed of Portugal, CANDELABRUM built a sizable reputation in the underground with a trio of demo tapes in 2015. However, whereas those three demos were primarily slow-tempo black metal with a simultaneously majestic/morbid atmosphere, Necrotelepathy is something else altogether - and a triumph of total otherworldliness.

Comprised of two epic-length, side-long tracks, Necrotelepathy brims with a complexity of not just composition, but moreso texture. To start, the deliberately blistering, in-the-red rawness imparts both a sense of unorthodox "wrongness" and almost exaggerated nakedness. However, such a soundfield is sincere in its intent, as Candelabrum wield it much like another instrument in a manner similar to cult countrymen BLACK CILICE: the mesmerizing qualities inherent in the band's black metal are intensified to a literally out-of-this-world extent that severs it completely from normal "metalhead" metal or, most especially, the more social-oriented ends of "black metal."

But at heart, CANDELABRUM are songwriters. The two twisting journeys that constitute Necrotelepathy weave and wind through myriad explosions of emotion - some extended for maximum hypnosis, of course - that are all generously suffused with a yearning, stargazing sort of melodicism. It's the sort comparable to the darker corners of classic Norwegian black metal like KVIST, HADES, and early MANES, but when filtered through such a beyond-harsh recording style, a certain shimmering quality emerges, and hauntingly so. Not surprisingly, the album lyrically deals with out-of-body experiences, contact with the dead, and the vastness of the beyond. Indeed, it's that lattermost subject that forms the wings on which Necrotelepathy takes flight - and with it, the listener.

The Portuguese raw scene has made great strides in recent years, and justifiably earned its underground acclaim. But with Necrotelepathy, CANDELABRUM now have delivered arguably its most defining moment and its most iconoclastic.