Sepulchral Divination



German cave-dwelling blackened death-doom primitives Nekus (formed by current and past members of Putridarium, Into Coffin, Hadit, Omnivore, and Bestial Warfare, among others) started as a trio in Marburg, Germany around 2018, formed by Italian musician G.N. on vocals and guitar, E. on bass, and M.K. on drums, emerging with a humongous sepulchral, bottom-caving sound blending black and death metal with crippling, slow-moving and insanely downtuned doom with massive atmospheres and a huge and crushing low end reminiscent of bands like Moss, Grave Upheaval and Sunn O))). The band’s uniquely horrific, rumbling and mummified sound first found expression on the “Death Nova Upon the Barren Harvest” debut EP issued in 2020 on all formats by Blood Harvest Records, being soon followed by the “Malevolence Evocations” split CD with Impure Declaration, released the same year by Old Temple. The band then delivered over fifty minutes of catacombal and suffocating death-doom on “Sepulchral Divinations”, their 2023 critically acclaimed debut 2LP album for Sentient Ruin, which was then quickly again followed up by a ten-minute cassette tape split with Canadian war metal label mates Ceremonial Bloodbath. These two releases underlined the band’s evolving mastery of guitar, vocal, and drum reverb use, extremised to create a uniquely spectral and subterranean hellscape, evoking visions of monstrous caverns and hallways bellowing beneath the earth’s crust, and soon becoming the prime ingredient and concept of the band’s staple sepulchral sound. “Death Apophenia”, Nekus’ sophomore full-length album, followed again swiftly in 2024, introducing the band now in a four-piece configuration with the addition of L.D. (from Putridarium and Barbaric Oath) assuming second guitar duties; a move wich further evolved the complexity and textural enormity of the band’s reverb-drenched, bottom-heavy onslought. But it’s not only the lineup expansion which also expanded the band’s musical horizon and their capacity to truly build and consecrate their vision. “Death Apophenia” also represented a big step up for Nekus in recording value. A move which refined and improved the band’s concept further by introducing an enhanced clarity and articulation in production quality, and exalted further the cinematic quality of the band’s widescreen, otherworldly sound and of its mortieferous, crushing droning frequencies. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.