Spirit Possession – Cathedral Speech
Release Date: 2nd October 2026
Label: Sepulchral Voice Records (Europe) / Profound Lore Records (USA & Rest of the World)
Bandcamp
Genre: Black Metal
FFO: Aura Noir, Malokarpatan, Celtic Frost, Darkthrone.
Review By: Magnus Rotås
Back in the 90s, when the second wave of Black metal was flourishing, the one consistent idea behind almost every Black Metal band was to have their own unique identity, to play their own style of bleak and cold metal. Later came the copycats that created a much narrower idea of what Black Metal could be. I’m saying all this because there is something inherently refreshing about a band like Spirit Possession that refuses to treat genre boundaries as instructions. With Cathedral Speech, their third full-length, Spirit Possession continue to carve out a space that feels distinctly their own: a strange intersection of black metal, heavy metal, first-wave extremity, progressive composition, and something far more difficult to pin down all together. It is recognizably black metal, but rarely does it behave the way you expect black metal to behave.
Where so much contemporary black metal can become trapped within increasingly familiar aesthetic and structural conventions, Spirit Possession seem almost determined to make things difficult for themselves. The riffs twist and mutate, the guitars spiral into increasingly elaborate patterns, and the drums frequently feel less like a conventional rhythmic foundation than an active participant in the music’s increasingly deranged narrative. There is a genuine sense of discovery here, as though the band is following each idea wherever it happens to lead rather than steering it toward a predetermined genre template.
Its seven tracks form a whole labyrinth of ideas, with the first half already establishing a remarkably volatile vocabulary before the final three pieces unfold into the side-long suite that closes the record. Spirit Possession has always been a band who has never been afraid of doing things differently, and the closing suite consisting of: First Levitation (Accursed Entrances…), Second Liturgy (…Impossible Exits…) and Trinity Possessor (…In Ten Thousand Hells) shows a new side of the band. Rather than ending with a conventional final statement, the band use the latter portion of the album to expand their ideas into something more sprawling and atmospheric. It gives Cathedral Speech the feeling of a journey through increasingly bizarre musical architecture.
Of course, taking this approach comes with its drawbacks. The album’s refusal to settle into familiar patterns can occasionally make it feel more difficult to grasp than some listeners may want from a black-metal record. There are moments when the sheer density of ideas threatens to overwhelm the compositions, and the album’s more adventurous impulses will undoubtedly be divisive for anyone looking for a straightforward blast of atmospheric or traditional black metal. But that sense of danger is also precisely what makes the record worthwhile.
Three albums into their career, Spirit Possession are clearly not interested in playing it safe. Cathedral Speech is all the better for it. In a genre where individuality can sometimes be difficult to maintain, the band have managed to develop an identity that is immediately recognizable without ever becoming predictable or “too much”.
(4.5 / 5)
