Opening with the immortal quote from George Orwell's 1984 "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever", Caliginous set the dark nihilistic atmospheres from the very off. Forming in 2005, Acrimonia (the single figure behind Caliginous) had released a handful of demos and an EP, with this being his debut full length release.
Not satisfied with merely freezing you to the bone with the auditory equivalent to permafrost, Caliginous actually would prefer it if you didn't exist. Yes, this is anti-human artistry played with all the bile and dedication of a mind devoted to the extinction of mankind, so don't go expecting any joviality or breezy acoustic passages here. Sonically, it is drum-machine driven dreary black metal all the way, with disharmony and hectic arrangements aplenty mixed amongst the ear-piercing feedback, wrenching guitars and sore-throated vocal hisses. There's unquestionably some inspiration from the LLN bands in the riffwork, as well touches of the primitive misanthropic nature of the Finnish black metal scene (Clandestine Blaze and Satanic Warmaster in particular). However, Caliginous also have the tendency to drag out some crushing fragments of USBM in their more echoing, cavernous passages, which particularly reminded me of Draugar's first album and demos with the chiming chords and reverberating tremolo picked froth which radiates into the world like a unhealthy dosage of plutonium.
So, with riffs of this pyrophoric nature (i.e riffs that could easily be heard crackling on a Geiger counter), this is certainly worth looking into for those into such bands as Mutiilation and early Deathspell Omega. A word of warning however, do not procrastinate if you're thinking of picking it up, as it's limited to a super-mean 150 copies (hey - it's self released after all).