Hailing from Portugal, Dolentia play a particularly ritualistic form of black metal descending both musically and conceptually from the style pioneered by the Norwegian Black Metal scene with some modern additions and hints of melody. As the title of their 2015 album indicates, the theme is that of a dark initiation. The scornful misanthropy underlying most black metal is complemented by the adoration and surrender to the night and its mysteries, nature in its most obscure aspects and a past marked by ceremony and martiality, all these understood as keys to an ominous form of transcendence.
As expected from this type of music, the songs are simple, sometimes containing no more than 3 riffs, and the focus is less on complex arrangements and more on the establishment of an atmosphere, justifying the prolonging of each section for the purpose of inducing an hypnotic state in the listener, adequate to the fading of vulgar consciousness and the unraveling of mystical visions. The riffs are sharp, incisive and the unquestioned driving force of each track, unlike in many of the “atmospheric” black metal bands whose guitar component is often neutered or relegated to the background. There is space for some subtelties despite the inherently simple architecture of the songs, like the use of slower sections as a pause before introducing a new theme and specially when the band ventures into more ambitious structures such as in “Noite”, which starts off with blast-beats and one of the most expressive riffs of the album and then slows down for an extended ritualistic passage, growing triumphant in hatred through the instensification of the rythm guitars and drums until giving in to a sinister intervention of ambient guitar before returning to the first theme with renewed vigour, creating a sense of an accomplished and fullfilled voyage. This ability to craft an authentic and profound journey from simple or even minimalistic elements is one of the crucial characteristics of black metal songwriting, present in bands like Burzum, Darkthrone and Beherit.
Also of note in this aspect are the first track “Voragem” and “Supremo Desígnio”, which experiments with more melodious excursions from the lead guitar and ends in a soaring and victorious affirmation of darkness. The vocals might not be as otherwordly as the rest of the music demands since they take the form of an “all too human” screaming, lacking the distortion or twisted high-pitched edge of certain vocalists in the genre. While this album does not aim at innovation, it is sufficiently effective in the evocation of the imagery and emotions it purports to communicate. Like the enrapturing forces that reveal themselves to the initiate in his awakening, these hymns to the night are mighty and distant, but their organization and control leads to an exultant realization and the recognition of the naked powers of nature and beyond, far above mere human reality.
