לָשׁוֹן הַקֹּדֶשׁ by HEC

In a short amount of time, HEC have ascended the ranks of supremacy within the elite Portuguese raw black metal scene. In 2017 alone, seemingly out of nowhere, the duo's debut demo arrived - titled Sermões da montanha, under the auspices of HARVEST OF DEATH - and not long after, a split 10" with Iceland's ÓREIÐA, also via HARVEST OF DEATH. Between the two quick-hitting recordings was unleashed a malformed 'n' malnourished sort of black metal, both primitive and elevated, running both parallel and perpendicular to Portugal's reigning raw paradigm.

Now, with לָשׁוֹן הַקֹּדֶשׁ, HEC maximize that massive potential and unleash a torrent of tortured (and torturing) sounds, all housed within a full-length foundation. In fact, the album format itself allows this diabolical duo to stretch their agonizing aesthetic to its very limits, with each of the album's 11 tracks literally its own soundworld. From barbaric bashing to laconic lullabies, creepy doom-crawls to harrowing blasting hysteria, lurking dread to dungeon wonder, and all kinds of insanely jagged points between, HEC render their debut album as a rude, crude, and caustic trip through the foulest depths of the subconscious.

Fittingly, לָשׁוֹן הַקֹּדֶשׁ retains nearly as much rawness as its short-length predecessors, but those thirsty 'n' miserable vibes are here transposed onto an incrementally clearer (and consequently more cutting) production...or "production," if you will, as the trapped-in-a-cave feeling is nevertheless prominent, its dread and darkness tangibly thicker and more oppressive. Or it's "heavier," if that's even a consideration for total black metal rawness. They likely don't care either way.

Simply, then, HEC are now more successfully able to exact sonic vengeance any way they wish, and all with a respectably expanding palette. It is now unveiled in the form of לָשׁוֹן הַקֹּדֶשׁ, and hereby shall it serve as a new chapter in Portuguese black metal's reign in the nowadays scene.