UK-based black metal horde, Barshasketh, are streaming their third album, Ophidian Henosis. The album is set for international release on July 30th via Blut & Eisen Productions.

Originally hailing from New Zealand but later relocating to Scotland, Barshasketh have been patiently perfecting their bewitching craft these past five years, away from prying eyes but with sights set on diabolical fullmoon mysticism. Theirs is a sound that resonates with the stripped-bare, nightsky purity of second-wave black metal, from the ancient days when black metal was truly a cult for criminals and diehards.

Ophidian Henosis is Barshasketh's grandest distillation of these eldritch energies yet. At once familiar and foreign, Ophidian Henosis explodes forth with cryogenic violence and fog-drenched atmosphere, arcing about with subtle shifts in texture and twists in composition, maintaining a headspace of otherworldly splendour whilst never lingering too long in a monochromatic mire.

For however committed to purist black metal Barshasketh may be, their journey across Ophidian Henosis is a multi-hued one, recalling the early days of Sacramentum, Kvist, Setherial, and Isvind among others - in other words, the spectral darkness of the mid-1990s - and brimming with a passion and poignancy that can only come from the most obsidian of souls.

Ophidian Henosis tracklisting:

“Ophidian Henosis - I”
“Ophidian Henosis - II”
“Ophidian Henosis - III”
“Ophidian Henosis - IV”
“Ophidian Henosis - V”
“Ophidian Henosis - VI”
“Ophidian Henosis - VII”

Album stream:

 
Barshasketh was formed in 2007 as a solo-project by Krigeist with the intention of creating pure black metal, intentionally free of genre cross-pollination: second-wave blasphemy re-imagined and reinterpreted through extensive use of layering and counterpoint. After two well-received demos via Wolfsvuur Records, the debut album Defying the Bonds of Cosmic Thralldom emerged in 2010. Following the release of the first full-length, Krigeist relocated to Scotland after travelling through southeast Asia. After settling there, he went about piecing together a live lineup, and a series of live performances followed, culminating with a show in support of Negative Plane.

Out of this live lineup, GM (guitars and vocals) was made a permanent member and BH was recruited on drums. This trio recorded the second full-length, Sitra Achra, released in 2013 through Todestrieb Records. After recruiting bassist BB on bass, the lineup was complete, and Barshasketh recorded two split EPs in quick succession. The band went on to record a third full-length, Ophidian Henosis, at the infamous Necromorbus Studio in Stockholm.

This most recent full-length undoubtedly presents the band’s finest work to date and showcases a new level of musical and lyrical maturity. Extolling an adversarial spirituality, these seven hymns of darkness evangelize the impure and the obscene.