Warmoon Lord - Burning Banners of the Funereal War (2023 Reissue) (LP)

Originally released in various limited editions since early 2019, Burning Banners of the Funereal War began the saga that is WARMOON LORD. Arguably the best-kept secret of the ever-fertile Finnish black metal underground, the band is the sole work of one Lord Vrajitor, a prolific figure in the wider Finnish music underground, but also concurrently the mainman of OLD SORCERY. But whereas that band largely / mostly works within the dungeon synth genre, WARMOON LORD is pure and proud black metal of a most fantastical nature - equally medieval, maybe even more so, but burning with icy-hot passion that so fired the second wave during the mythical 1990s.
And so did Burning Banners of the Funereal War slowly stoke those fires, which then reached a conflagration with WARMOON LORD's second album, Battlespells, released in 2021 to widespread acclaim. Feeling duty call. However strong Battlespells may be, WARMOON LORD's debut album is surely its equal in vigor and valor; cold and grim, to be sure, the subtly synth-led Burning Banners of the Funereal War brims with a stately and steadfast classicism that transports the listener back at least 25 years, to days when black metal began descending deeper underground. An essential spin, then, for criminals and counts, orks and vampires - the not-so-distant past is alive!