Arson Cafe: Unpure - Prophecies Ablaze Review

Saturday, April 01, 2023

Unpure - Prophecies Ablaze Review

Having already started its activities in the early 90’s with a couple of albums in 1995 and 1996, Unpure eventually didn’t get far especially when comparing to other, bigger names of the Swedish black metal scene. However, hailing from Uppsala, they have been a brother band to a now well established and household name in the scene from the same city, and that is of course Watain. Apart from sharing members for the release of the latest record Prophecies Ablaze, musicians involved in death metal neighbours Degial, are also involved in the release.

Unpure are the oldest of all these bands though, even though they haven’t reached similar levels of popularity. Previous albums were more driven by passion than musical efficiency, and when listening to their early material, one could conclude a skilled toolset was lacking, but that is not the case in 2023, when by now seasoned individuals get down to the juice of the meat when it comes to song construction. The artwork of Prophecies Ablaze is finally at the level of elegance it should be, as well as the record’s production which provides a pleasingly audible sound for an album that was clearly made more professionally than before.

Music-wise, Unpure’s dedication to the traditional, old school black metal traditions remain (e.g. in “Beyond the Nightmares”, “Northern Sea Madness”), yet the band also includes black / thrash metal elements (in “Small Crooked Bones”), as well as faster paced, more uplifting tempos through a bit of black’n’roll here and there (more clearly in “His Wrath and the Red Soil”). Highlights of the record are the long, dismal, middle paced section in “The Witch of Upsala” and the wonderful closing track “Endtime Dictator”, while on the other side of the scale actually lies the opener “Megalithic Gateways”, which I found to be the least interesting.

However, in general, Prophecies Ablaze proves to be highly repeatable and easily listenable. Unpure doesn’t contain the compositional ambition and grandeur of Watain, or the scourging ferocity of Degial, but instead holds its own flame with similar kind of material in a slightly watered down (but not in a negative way) version with a multitude of fine melodies throughout the tracks and enough inspiration to keep the album afloat. Looking at their back catalog, this is the band’s most well-rounded and catered work to date.

Out on March 31st, 2023 | Invictus Productions

DAMAGE: 3.5/5 [Great]

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Reckoning

From all the hills came screams. A piece of sky beside the crescent sun was detaching. It was a loosened circle of evening sky, suddenly lighted from the back. It was an abrupt black body out of nowhere; it was a flat disk; it was almost over the sun. That is when there were screams. At once this disk of sky slid over the sun like a lid. The sky snapped over the sun like a lens cover. The hatch in the brain slammed. Abruptly it was dark night, on the land and in the sky. In the night sky was a tiny ring of light. The hole where the sun belongs is very small. A thin ring of light marked its place. There was no sound. The eyes dried, the arteries drained, the lungs hushed. There was no world. We were the world’s dead people rotating and orbiting around and around, embedded in the planet’s crust, while the earth rolled down. Our minds were light-years distant, forgetful of almost everything.