Album Review: Veilburner – The Three Lightbearers

Artist: Veilburner
Album: The Three Lightbearers
Release Date: August, 2014
Genre: Melodic Death Metal / Extreme Metal
Rating: 5/5

Once again, Pennsylvania has sprouted up yet another spectacular band, called Veilburner. This album was sent to me before it’s release date in August so I could give it a listen and do an initial album review on it. What seemed like just another album review to me, actually turned into two weeks of constant listening and an “understanding” of the album as a whole. For fans of Lecherous Nocturne, Blut Aus Nord, and Nile, I highly recommend you continue reading this review and purchase this album!

Veilburner is a two-piece Extreme Metal band from Pennsylvania, and they deliver! Consisting of Chrisom Infernium on vocals (Torture Ascendancy), and the Producer of Torture Ascendancy (name is unknown…) on all other instruments, “The Three Lightbearers” is more than 11 tracks of music compiled into an album, it is a concept album that has a story to tell flowing from song to song. It’s not very often that you come across an album that you consistently listen to from beginning to end, but this album will surely change that for the listener.

“The Three Lightbearers” begins with the track ‘Gospel of Blood-Stained Void’, which puts the listener in a trance-like mindset and really catches your attention for what’s about to happen next. Chrisom’s vocals soon deteriorate that trance with those blood-pressure raising screams that make your hair raise, and then all Hell breaks loose at the one minute marker: blast beats under very driving guitar riffs, followed by technical guitars and chaotic vocals is what awaits the listener.

A track worth a special mention that stood out to me and really set the mood is ‘Solarcide’. This track begins with beautiful clean guitars which put the listener in the most euphoric state of mind, right before the phenomenal musicianship of this duo really defines what ambience and heavy mean as a whole. The chord progressions and voicings of the guitar work on ‘Solarcide’ (amongst others) is simply astounding and is very well thought out (I don’t know who the “unknown” member is, but I would like to find out!!). Chrisom’s vocals compliment this with his extremely diverse abilities to range from guttering lows to “Satanic Hymn” sounding cleans that make you feel as you are witnessing a sacrifice of some sort. ‘Solarcide’ ends and flows right into ‘Revelation Genesis’ which is a more aggressive track to remind you that the madness is not over.

The closing track ‘Damnation AD’ (preceded by an interlude ‘Idol Horror’ which you MUST listen to prior to it!!) really closes the page to this album. It is intense, heavy, fast, melodic, and flat out fucking scary sounding! The first minute of this song alone is so chaotic with the vocals of Chrisom Infernium that you literally have to rewind it a few times to make sure you aren’t losing your mind and are actually hearing demonic laughing in the background over top of the schizophrenic vocals Chrisom brings to the table. (I listened to this on my studio headphones and highly recommend the listener doing the same. There is PHENOMENAL production on this album, and a lot of production effects that must be appreciated and truly listened to.)

In closing, with “The Three Lightbearers”, you get more than just an album. I have spoken with Chrisom Infernium on numerous occasions (regarding music as a whole, and his extensive knowledge on religions and conspiracies of all kinds), and on this album you are getting deep and in-depth lyrics. These are not your typical death metal lyrics which have no substance, these are lyrics from an educated individual who means what he says. Do yourself a favor, and pick up “The Three Lightbearers” by Veilburner today!