Review by TheOneNeverSeen on March 8, 2023.

I've learned about this album thanks to YouTube recommendations. The cover art looked cool, so I've decided to have a listen, even though I have never heard of the band before, nor did I know its genre. And, well, it was worth it, for "Errata" is a highly atmospheric release which is also the most unusual one I have heard so far this year.

Even though the band's genre is classified as black/death on EM, I struggle to identify the genre the elements of which dominated throughout the album. The latter's atmosphere is a weird mixture of technical death, doom, atmospheric black and even a little bit of core, the groovy, late Decapitated-like sound with its crispy guitars, technical drumming and death metal growling doesn't really resemble one of any particular genre, and the song structures are also confusing with clean passages or just slower darker melodies suddenly replacing absolute madness with blast beats and powerful screaming.

The album's principal mood is also hard to define, for it changes from the uncertainty of "Descend Beneath" to the nervousness of "Invocat" and the hopelessness of "Dragged". Including the cover of a Porcupine Tree song was an interesting and definitely the right decision, since it dilutes the album's flow with a differently written melody and features powerful clean vocals. Generally speaking, a good way of describing the album's atmosphere would be as follows: imagine you are standing at the top of very long stairs descending into the dark and for whatever reason you want to see what is down there, but you're not sure if you actually want to go down the stairs. The intensity of this feeling mingled with fear and lack of clarity is exactly what "Errata" offers. It is a rather unusual atmosphere and I love it.

The riffs aren't, for the most part, particularly stunning, mostly because this album, at least according to how I view it, is about the atmosphere and not the individual songs in and of themselves. But, regardless, all songs are solid and consistent in their bleak intensity with my personal favorites being "Descend Beneath", "Severed Hemispheres" and "Invocat". In terms of the lyrics, the record is also consistent, the cryptic despair of lines like "dismal thralldom awaits" and "serpent crest ablaze, symbol of servitude" is all over the place.

So, "Errata" is a strange album, to say the least, and this is exactly what makes it so good. It has its own distinctive sound and mood that you will certainly remember. Its sick atmosphere as well as the striking cover is definitely worth of your attention.

Rating: 9 out of 10