Review by Felix on October 15, 2024.

Usually, a split album is a musical joint venture of two different bands. But there is a least one guy in Poland with a deviating understanding. His pseudonym is Draconis. We do not know whether he is monogamous in matters of life. But I don’t think so, because he runs at least two solo projects. This made it easy for him to record a split album – with himself. Due to the fact that I don’t suffer from schizophrenia yet, I think that he is taking the idea of these fundamentally appealing publications ad absurdum. Anyway, this says nothing about the musical content.

Draconis starts with Actum Inferni, but this is much in advance: there are no big differences in terms of style or production. Both pieces are amazing. At first, Draconis delivers a very well-arranged number called 'W Cieniu Ramion Krucyfiksu'. It offers cleverly integrated breaks, an unexpected guitar solo, diabolic guitar lines, and many different degrees of tempo and intensity. The guitar work is neither bulky nor progressive, but it is no easy listening black metal as well. Nonetheless, a melodic touch is part of the game during a comparatively high number of sequences, while the demonic vocals follow strictly the rules of the genre. Highly interesting 11 minutes do not lack substance in any way and it seems as if the artist really has put his devilish heart and his pitch-black soul into this intriguing song.

Now let’s come to track two of this disc which is limited to 666 copies. I have number 334 and this fact leaves me baffled. Should I regret that I didn't get the half-Satanic 333 or should I be happy that my copy leads the second half of the complete edition? A very important question that has to be solved urgently if mankind will ever find peace... Okay, not really. Instead, I can lose some words about the track of Gniew. The man behind this project is Draconis, but I guess I mentioned this already, haha. His second piece also reveals his fine instinct for the genre. Once again, its single sequences blend seamlessly with each other. In a direct comparison, I decide in favor of 'W Cieniu Ramion Krucyfiksu', because it houses fanatic vortex-like parts, but both tracks deliver menacing underground black metal of high quality. Therefore I am glad that Draconis, who is also involved in Plaga, does not present the pieces in a pretty disastrous low-fi sound. The production is neither overly clean nor amateurish and it is able to lend the tracks an adequate depth. So yes, this “split” is somewhat schizophrenic, but its music delivers healthy, muscular, and honest black metal, light years away of everything one can call commercial music. Consequently, I hope you are fast enough to get one of the remaining maximum of 665 copies.

Rating: 8 out of 10