Hereditaire

Ever since they emerged from Greece’s underground catacombs, UNVERKALT have been drawing closer to the edge. The post-metal band’s third album doesn’t continue that shift so much as it plunges into the darkness that’s always waited below. While wrestling with all the weight of our accursed history, ‘Héréditaire’ now stands as their heaviest and most heartfelt offering.UNVERKALT are still possessed by a cinematic vision for metal. As if coming into focus, lead single “Die Auslöschung” appears from behind a slow-moving haze before it’s snapped out of its trance by fiery blast beats. The band’s previous albums took cues from French painting and European film noir, but ‘Héréditaire’ throws back the velvet curtain in favor of a veil. “Oath Ov Prometheus” dismantles the myth of man as god’s perfection creation with Dimitra Kalavrezou’s freshly blackened vocals.‘Héréditaire’ is a pulse-pounding new direction for UNVERKALT, but the album’s arc traces back to our deepest and darkest origins. Beneath a surging bass line, “Introjects” peels away beliefs that were never ours but inherited like a disease between generations. Kalavrezou’s mystifying cleans remain one of the band’s defining traits, but her contempt for those who watch the world burn is all the more heated when forged alongside Sakis Tolis from Rotting Christ on the monolithic “I, The Deceit”. “The world falls apart / And I need to stop you / Whatever it may cost”.On ‘Héréditaire’, UNVERKALT lift the veil on our cursed existence with their heaviest and most heartfelt offering.