Servant |Lux Ex Inferis |AOP Records

Servant came out of the German underground in 2021. The band is Farago on vocals and guitars, Samael on guitars, Apophis on drums and Thanatos on bass. Their sound has always paired speed and atmosphere with melodic leads that aim high. Their debut, "Blessed By The Light Of A Thousand Stars", came out that same year, and "Aetas Ascensus" followed in 2023. Those two albums got them onto festival stages and club bills all over Germany. The jump came in 2024 with "Death Devil Magick", their first release on AOP Records, which sent them touring across Western and Eastern Europe. "Lux Ex Inferis" is their fourth full length.

Farago recorded the album at Katzbach Studio and did the production and mixing himself. Dennis Poschwatta mastered it at the same studio. Two guest vocalists appear Lethian (Nornir) on "De Profundis" and P.G. (Groza) on "Tabula Rasa". The Latin title means “light from the underworld”, and the whole album plays on that idea, with melody rising out of blackness and hymns set against blast beats.

Having Farago produce and mix his own band pays off. The guitars sound cold and wide, the tremolo leads ride high over the blasting and Thanatos's bass sits low enough to give the fast sections a floor. The songs stack twin guitar harmonies over blast beats, then drop into slower, anthemic stretches where Farago's shriek turns almost ceremonial. Meanwhile Samael's leads coil around the main riffs in cold, bright spirals. On "De Profundis", Lethian's voice meets Farago's over a melody that keeps climbing and doesn't resolve until the last blast.

"Tabula Rasa" pulls the other way. P.G. roughens the edges while the riffs gallop toward a chorus made for a packed club. Apophis is the engine behind it all, switching from full blast to a heavy stomp without a stumble. Some of the epic buildups follow a predictable arc, and a lead or two borrows melodic black metal moves heard a hundred times before. The album runs as one long climb out of the dark, each track handing its tension to the next, and it's the most complete work Servant has put their name to.

|9.0