Album Review: A Flock Named Murder – Incendiary Sanctum
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
Canadian post black metal trio, A Flock Named Murder, finally follow up their 2018 debut, An Appointed Time, with this behemoth of a record: the sophomore Incendiary Sanctum. Once again, we find the brothers Mueller – Ryan and drummer, Cam – together with bassist Mike Wandy weaving their epic spells by blending black, doom, post and death metal together, as well as adding more than a smattering of folk-metal, to create a vast and cinematic album in just four songs.
Standing on the shoulders of established genre-bending names like Neurosis, Ulver, Cult of Luna and more, A Flock Named Murder use their extensive running time to fully, and seamlessly, explore the connections between crushing extremity and hypnotic ambience.
Opening on the windswept plains of some ancient land, Gardens of Embers commences Incendiary Sanctum with slow and deliberately picked strings, solitary notes that seem to spell out the morose nature of the song; a faint trace of an acoustic can be heard before the crushing, monolithic Wolves in the Throne Room-type barrage of epic black metal hits you square in the ear.
Ryan’s attention is torn between delivering twisted, tortured vocals and casting descending triplets. Folk elements arise and feel natural, as does the gut-churning riffs and rampant percussion. A combination of maelstrom drumming and uplifting guitars winds the opener to a close, evoking the ancient feel of Elysian Fields.
At but-a scootch over thirteen minutes, Pierced Flesh Catharsis is the album’s shortest song and what it lacks in the running time it more than compensates in the density and rawness of its sound. The most-black metal song of the record, it’s a frenzy of grizzled, demonic vocals and endlessly repeating riffs.
An early tune breakdown into slow and melancholic post metal territory adds a certain poignancy to the extremity, the black metal guitar runs allow for the ideas to flex their creative muscles and fully explore the song in a way that might not be possible in a song with a shorter duration.
In stark contrast to the shortest song, comes the longest, with Eulogy Fields clocking in at an impressive nineteen minutes and picking up the ominous tolling bell that ended Pierced Flesh Catharsis. Built around a galloping riff and a passive central section, it grows slowly, laying upon itself with every passing cycle, until it explodes in a ripping progression of raw and fetid rage.
An interlude of passive strings breaks the frenzy, leading the second half into more sedate development. Classic metal moments blend with airy strings as big, bold guitars guides the song to its denouncement, through wrought and howling sustains and the big finale, leading us back to the windswept plain of the opener.
However, there’s still the coda of To Drown in Obsidian Tides to come, something of an outlier as far as Incendiary Sanctum is concerned as it is less interested in the black or post metal as it is with the heavy, riff-laden doom of Candlemass or Saint Vitus. Fat chugs and expressive percussion give this closing track a particularly organic feel, ending with a prolonged folk--flavoured outro.
Although perhaps not a household name, A Flack Named Murder have shared stages with such acts as Harakiri for the Sky, Mizmor, Oranssi Pazuzu, Hexis, and Miserere Luminis; theirs is an expansive take on the extreme metal genre, informed by those they have met, but with the particular creative perspective of a trio to give Incendiary Sanctum a sound and vibe all of its own.
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