Description
The Sinister Flame is proud to present Stygian Temple’s striking debut album In the Sign of the Five Angles on vinyl LP format. A literal bolt from the blue (or deepest black?) emerging with no warning and even less fanfare Stygian Temple released their debut album In the Sign of the Five Angles on CD format in 2016. With no prior public recordings this release flew far too under the radar of even the most diehard underground-dwellers which is criminal to say the very least: here Stygian Temple evinced a mastery of black metal that defied their otherwise-new standing. Indeed one could even say that In the Sign of the Five Angles was some lost Sombre Records release from the late ’90s so authentic was its ancient pallor – but then again the late/great Sombre would NEVER release a CD in the first place… The Sinister Flame lives in the present but breathes the past just as potently and therein lies the rationale for at last unleashing Stygian Temple’s In the Sign of the Five Angles on vinyl for the first time ever. Whether the year is 2020 or 1998 this 41-minute opus is driven by a timeless purely Satanic fanaticism. After the appropriately mood-setting intro this Teutonic duo then transforms the six subsequent tracks into a menacing void of cold & atmospheric all-caps BLACK METAL. It’s imperative to understand that latter point here for Stygian Temple possess an exceedingly astute grasp of melodicism: surely a word that might rankle the noses of those who grew up in more modern times of cavernous-this and sepulchral-that but cast your gaze back to the days of purple ‘n’ blue covers and one will find that nearly every worthy horde back then backed up their battery with spiraling nightsky-melodic riffing. Such is the case here tenfold and it’s welded onto thoroughly dynamic first-class songwriting that sacrifices not an ounce of power nor nuance. We could make further references to early Watain even-earlier Dark Funeral and perhaps Mayhem’s De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas to give a clearer view of Stygian Temple’s primary influences but on evidence of In the Sign of the Five Angles their glorification of Satan is entirely their own. Thanks to the ever-flowing mass of useless black metal that’s shamelessly released by hundreds of labels on a monthly basis there are many pearls that never get the attention they would very much deserve nor seem to reach the right hands. Thus The Sinister Flame deems it their duty to shine a further blacklight on Stygian Temple’s In the Sign of the Five Angles by releasing it on vinyl. You snooze you pose! Exclusive USA distribution by Dark Descent Records
