From the Belgian underground, a covenant rises. Djevelpakt, a name that reeks of the far north yet has its roots buried deep in home soil, is the creation of P.F. Hraesvelg, the merciless throat behind Heinous, without doubt one of the strongest black metal acts this country has produced. For its execution he summoned Déhà: bassist, drummer, keyboardist, a man whose projects have become almost impossible to count. The Hungary-born producer and musician lends his talents here with evident purpose. Following last year’s demo Witch’s Pakt, which regrettably slipped under too many radars, the full debut has now arrived. The sound abrades, smoulders, suffocates. The production carries a generous layer of reverb that injects depth without fracturing the edge, raw, claustrophobic, direct. Where reverb bleeds lesser bands dry, here it fortifies the core. Hraesvelg’s fascination with the Nidrosian movement surfaces when the organ emerges and the compositions take on a near-sacred, ritualistic glow, shadows from Trondheim that make no effort to conceal themselves. Countrymen LVTHN cast a long darkness over this debut: the same oppressive, pitch-black atmosphere that seizes the listener by the throat in its most dissonant moments and refuses to let go. The opening tracks burn without mercy. Hraesvelg screams, roars, preaches and wails through the darkness, a vocalist who once again confirms his standing within the Belgian scene. Yet these compositions are far from a one-dimensional assault. Slower passages breathe necessary space into the structures and reveal that Djevelpakt commands more than fury alone. That dynamic carries the longer pieces: The charms of horror unfolds as a ten-minute incantation in which rage and atmosphere seize each other by the throat and hold. Then the title track. Fifteen minutes that drag the listener forward without clemency. After an apparent conclusion the track continues to coil through a ten-minute appendix, dark, incantatory, slowly blooming from an almost meditative coldness toward a finale that lingers. To dismiss this passage as mere addendum would be to deny its weight: it reveals itself as one of the most haunting moments on the record, a serpent that withholds its venom until the final second. Here Djevelpakt shows its true face. With five compositions and well over forty minutes of darkness, Djevelpakt delivers a strikingly mature debut. The physical release through German label Dybbuk Productions is imminent, a pact that warrants your signature.