Conjura – Perpetua Tenebris (Cassette) Review | Raw Mexican Black Metal Ritualism
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Conjura's "Perpetua Tenebris" feels like the kind of record you don't just find — you stumble onto it while digging too deep into the Mexican underground and come out a little more cursed.
The band hails from Celaya, Guanajuato, and was formed as a side project by founding members of Abruptus back in 2017.
They only managed to record a three-track rehearsal before the project went dark for a few years, buried under life, other bands, and the usual DIY chaos. Then they drag it back into the light with this debut album and a Darkthrone tribute track on the side, which already tells you exactly where their heads are at: raw, old-school black metal, no compromises, no polish.
Musically, "Perpetua Tenebris" is pure second-wave filth, but with that particular Mexican venom that makes it feel more feral than "frosty." The Darkthrone worship is undeniable — they literally dropped a tribute release at the same time — and the album leans hard into that raw, 90s approach: repetitive, hypnotic riffs, blasting drums, and a guitar tone that sounds like it was dragged through a graveyard and mic'd straight to tape.
You can also feel the general 90s Scandinavian current running through it: the cold insistence of early Gorgoroth, the hateful pulse you'd expect from classic Marduk, and a bit of that unhinged, haunted vibe that hangs over the more underground Norwegian stuff. It's not some shiny "post-black" experiment — it's rooted firmly in that old-school lineage and wears it proudly.
Lyrically, Conjura are not playing around with vague "darkness" clichés — they go straight for the jugular: hate, blasphemy, Satanism, anti-Christianity, death, and spiritual decay.
"Under the Shadow of Hatred" sets the tone as an invocation of pure spite and spiritual revolt, a long march under a sky that's already given up on you.
"An Obscure Flame of Victory" is basically a hymn to hellfire and Satanic triumph — tearing down heaven, humiliating God, spitting in the face of every holy symbol they can reach.
The lyrics on "Passage to Unholy Glory" twist personal despair into spiritual transformation: morphine melancholy, emptiness, and the urge to abandon life and faith in exchange for "perpetual evil.”
"Receiving the Black Wings Embrace" is classic Satanic devotion — pledging the soul to darkness, rejecting the "impure light," vomiting out sadness and pain in the name of the horns.
"Duat Banishment Ritual" pulls in Egyptian underworld imagery, mixing lust, death, hierophants, and sacrilegious erotic visions into a fever dream of exile and damnation. It's all very over the top in the best raw black metal way — blasphemous, obsessive, and absolutely sincere.
You can feel the band's background and struggles in how this thing sounds and breathes. This isn't the work of dudes with label budgets and comfy studios — it's people who've lived in the small-scene grind: juggling projects, scraping to record, and still choosing the most hostile, unfriendly form of metal they can.
Coming from the Mexican underground, where black metal has always had this extra layer of danger and intensity, Conjura leans into that cultural edge.
Their black metal isn't cold in a distant, "icy forest" way — it's hot, diseased, full of bile and sweat, like rituals held in cramped basements and forgotten fields.
You can tell they've absorbed the classic Scandinavian sound, but they don't just cosplay Norway — they twist it with their own hatred, local scene energy, and a pretty raw sense of spiritual warfare.
The occult side isn't just window dressing either.
Conjura’s lyrics read like a mash of classic Satanic black metal, ritual phrasing, and personal obsession.
They invoke Satan and the Morningstar directly, call on legions of demons, reject Christian promises, and constantly frame pain and death as gateways to power.
Tracks like "Duat Banishment Ritual" and "Passage to Unholy Glory" lean into ritual language — banishment, offerings, spiritual possession, and the idea of crossing a threshold into permanent darkness.
"Λάμια" hints at mythic, demonic femininity, drawing on ancient monsters rather than generic "witch" imagery. It's not academic occultism, it's more like blood-soaked altar black metal: traditional Satanic and anti-Christian themes pushed through desperate, obsessed, often very physical imagery.
And then there's the tape. This solid black cassette edition might be one of the best ways to actually experience "Perpetua Tenebris".
The recording is already raw and dark; once it hits magnetic tape, the riffs smear in just the right way, the hiss becomes part of the atmosphere, and everything sinks into this suffocating fog that fits the music perfectly.
The edition itself is seriously limited — one distro promo even mentioned just 16 solid black copies — which only adds to the cult aura.
Compared to digital or CD, the cassette feels less like "owning an album" and more like possessing a cursed object: small-run, handmade, analog, and absolutely unforgiving. It's the kind of thing that feels right at home in a tape-trading era, and for a band like Conjura, that aesthetic isn't nostalgia — it's the natural habitat of their sound.
Put simply: "Perpetua Tenebris" is underground black metal done the right way — raw, hateful, occult, and totally unwilling to smooth out its rough edges for anyone. If Darkthrone, early Marduk, and other 90s filth still live rent-free in your skull, and you want that spirit filtered through Mexican chaos and tape-saturated cruelty, this one's a keeper.
Tracklist:
A1. Under The Shadow Of Hatred - 7:21
A2. An Obscure Flame Of Victory - 4:35
A3. Passage To Unholy Glory - 4:43
A4. Λάμια - 2:47
B1. Receiving The Black Wings Embrace - 4:07
B2. Hebephrenic Thoughts Of Dying - 7:28
B3. Duat Banishment Ritual - 8:03
Credits:
Apocryphal Deadsoul – Vocals
Merciless Necromancer – Guitars
Seele Darksoul – Bass
Astarot – Drums (session, recorded at The Cave Home Studio)
Drums session by Astarot of The Cave Home Studio.
Recorded, mixed and mastered in The Cave Home Studio
Saturday, January 9, 2021
Remastered by shaman home studio on January 18, 2021.
Bandcamp * Facebook
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