Königreichssaal – Psalmen’o’Delirium

Band: Königreichssaal
Title: Psalmen’o’Delirium
Label: Godz Ov War Productions
Release date:  June  7th,  2024
Country: Poland
Format reviewed: High-Quality Digital Recording 

The Polish Black Metal trio Königreichssaal has just released their second full-length album, “Psalmen’o’Delirium”, and it feels like they have opened a door towards a battle ridden by insanity. Devil against God, obscurity against light, evil forces against light and morality. As they state in their Bandcamp page: “Psalmen’o’delirium reveals seven Shades of madness, a moral journey with downfalls, possession and the constant will to rebuild the soul and body. The personality is torn apart, the emerging body remains READY FOR BATTLE!” Here’s the ultimate question: are YOU ready??

This album has a high level of madness, indeed. It is shown through vocals that seem to be vomited by a devil possessed soul at times, and other times by a tormented inhabitant of a psychiatric hospital. In fact, I believe that the lyrics of these seven tracks are delusions of a cracked mind, constantly breaking down, representing the eternal struggle of the demonic and dark against the divine and luminous. Lies against truth, who will win in the end?

Musically it’s quite diverse, to say the least… The tone is always dark, menacing, like something wicked is lurking in the shadows and about to jump on you. There can be pure Black Metal with all the blast beats and these deranged vocals I was talking about; sometimes the pace slows down and goes into the realms of Doom, some keyboards add a special atmosphere making it even crazier… The opener “Iskarja” is a good example. Also in “Rubikon”, a track that’s quite calmed at the beginning and it turns into madness as it progresses, but it remains quite slow until the final minute, with the constant icy guitar in the background and some of the sickest vocals in this album.

“Psalmen” is another standout, I particularly enjoy the first minute and a half, with totally crazy vocals and drums as the guides, and cold guitars in the background. Howls, cries, laments filled with insanity, you can find all these and more in this song. An emotional violin provides some lucidity and madness becomes something beautiful. But the two final minutes of this track explode into chaos, there’s no other way to finish this.

“Anatema” is an intense and totally crazy song, vocals exploring a wide range of insanity. And not only this; lyrically, it’s like a crazy journey of a damned person towards their last destiny, the day of judgment and the sentence of death… and finally, the execution. The music is erratic, nothing conventional, it’s mostly Black Metal but it also contains slow tempos and multiple changes, with that insanity approach… 

I particularly love the way in which the album reaches the end; the closing track, “Satyros”, it’s intense and thick, and it has a sense of anguish that floods your brain, and lyrics match the music perfectly. 

It’s hard to keep sanity while listening to this album, constantly diving into the realms of madness, and non conventional musically. When it reaches the end, better you take a deep breath and say to yourself that this was just a nightmare. For me it’s  8,5/10  Sílvia

Band
Bandcamp
Instagram
Spotify
Facebook

Label
Site
Bandcamp
Instagram
Youtube
Facebook
Twitter

8,5/10 To Greatness and Glory!
**Please support the underground! It’s vital to the future of our genre**
#WeAreBlessedAltarZine
#TheZineSupportingTheUnderground