A mysterious collective with a full lineup but no facts fully revealed about it, CULTES DES GHOULES have always let their music speak for itself. Their early demos and Odd Spirituality EP, all highly sought after upon their initial release, eventually culminated in CULTES DES GHOULES' classic debut album, Häxan. Released in 2008 but eventually reissued by HELLS HEADBANGERS in 2011 after its first two versions quickly sold out, Häxan was a mesmerizing monolith beyond compare - ghoulish, gibbering, and ghastly in equal measures - although its sinful stench fondly recalled the likes of earliest, evilest Necromantia, Beherit, Mayhem, and Mortuary Drape. Also in 2011 came the Spectres Over Transylvania EP, which was an epic 25-minute track that suggested the ambitious direction to come. And come it did with 2013's Henbane, a five-song/58-minute monster of mesmerizing power. Dread and disease wafting up from the abyss like fumes of the most potent sulfur, coiling and releasing in a tense coitus of godless abandon, the unremittingly repulsive sounds of death worship: Henbane soon became a modern classic for a new generation of black metallers hungry for foul sounds with fathomless depth(s).
For Coven is indeed a literally MASSIVE album, totalling nearly 100 minutes across five near-equally massive songs; not for nothing will it be presented individually on two CDs and three vinyl LPs.