Review by Michael on January 1, 2023.

Spanish black metal pioneers Ouija had a nice Christmas present for every dark soul this year – their new album Fathomless Hysteros out via Negra Nit Distro. Although the band has existed since 1995 (with some break-ups) they only have three full-length albums in their biography. Not too many, so let's see what Santa Clause has put under the Christmas tree.

Starting with the title track the listener gets some orthodox black metal tunes right from the start. Cold riffing with a lot of tremolo picking, pummeling and thunderous drums and some harsh and hateful vocals are the main ingredients for the song. 'Bestia Negra' is an absolute black metal killer song with hypnotic drumming and again very contemptuous vocals spit out by vocalist Midgard. His harsh, half-whispered voice has a very mystifying and sinister effect on the listener (at least this is my impression). So this effect comes to fruition especially in the next song which is a very slow and atmospheric piece that lives from the simple structures and the vocals. The title 'I See You Without Eyes' brings to mind this demonic monster with the eyes in its palms in the fantastic movie Pan's Labyrinth by Guillermo del Toro. With 'Adversary' the band has an almost heavy metal song in their repertoire because even though it starts with typical minor black metal tunes the guitar solos soon turn out to be more classic metal than everything else here. Also the spoken words are quite unusual for the album and so this song becomes the best and most interesting track on Fathomless Hysteros because of its diversity and the tension sheet that it creates.

With their third album Ouija didn't create anything groundbreaking or new in the black metal scene and I can only guess that it was never their intention. Nevertheless they have created a very solid and entertaining old-school black metal album that doesn't need to hide from other black metal releases of 2022. Although the production may be a little bit more saturated and balanced here and there I would recommend this piece of dark art to every black metal maniac.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10 Bad Santas