By now, OFERMOD should require no introduction. Formed back in the dark days of 1996, the band released their debut EP, Mystérion Tés Anomias, in 1998. Although a mere two songs, OFERMOD’s opening salvo sowed the seeds for the orthodox black metal movement that would begin to blossom in the new millennium, alongside fellow SHADOW RECORDS alumni FUNERAL MIST and MALIGN. Crime and chaos followed mainman Belfagor everywhere he went, and the band’s momentum remained halted. However, OFERMOD eventually became a working entity again, starting with 2008’s Tiamtü full-length, and through magick and will did more recordings follow: Thaumiel (2012), the two-song Serpents’ Dance EP (2014), Sol Nox (2017), and the posthumous Pentagrammaton, originally intended to be the band’s debut album. And just last year, a renewed and reinvigorated OFERMOD released the acclaimed full-length Mysterium Iniquitatus.
Each OFERMOD recording always put forth a pivotal piece of their ever-evolving puzzle – ever the same, yet always different – and so it goes with the forthcoming mini-album Ofermodian Litanies. Something of a “double EP,” Ofermodian Litanies features two brand-new songs recorded with the lineup of Belfagor on vocals, guitar, and bass and MARDUK’s Simon “Bloodhammer” Schilling on drums; two tracks from the aforementioned Serpents’ Dance EP, long out of print; and an unreleased version of the title track to Tiamtü. The two new tracks with Schilling on drums impart a stately mania that moves from grim strut to ghoulish fury, with Belfagor’s vocals always a hackle-raising centerpiece. Although many years removed and with a lineup that would carry forward to Sol Nox, the two Serpents’ Dance tracks hold up exceptionally well, finding OFERMOD at their ugliest and arguably most rabble-rousing – the hooligan to the ritualist, if you will. Recorded during those same sessions, the unreleased version of “Tiamtü” holds the same slow-burn intensity of the original, with the ritualist here perhaps replacing the hooligan. All material here was recorded, produced, and mastered by Magnus “Devo” Andersson at Endarker Studios, keeping the totality intact.
Compact yet somehow still expansive, Ofermodian Litanies is aptly titled. OFERMOD illuminate both the past and present!
