Devouring Star don’t play with the typical Hollywood Satanic tropes. Yes, there’s evil afoot. Yes, there’s a direct challenge to a single higher power. But, no, Devouring Star mainman JL isn’t myopic in his subject matter or approach to black metal. Over the course of a full-length (2015’s Through Lung and Heart), an EP (2016’s Antihedron), and a split (2018’s Ekstrophé), Devouring Star has, however, developed significantly. Not just musically but thematically, which is one of JL’s primary Devouring Star inputs. In fact, Devouring Star isn’t music first. Rather, concepts are meted out and JL fashions Devouring Star around them. But these aren’t the type of running-around-the-woods conceptual sessions. Much of JL’s malign universe stems from meditation (as well as the occasional mind-transforming substance).

Which brings us to new track “Scar Inscriptions” off of new album, The Arteries of Heresy (Dark Descent). Conceptually, it might be hard to wiggle through JL’s claustrophobic din — to get to his interpretation of Sin (as explained below), but musically “Scar Inscriptions” is a blistering attack on the senses. Typical in a way, very atypical in most other ways. Yes, Devouring Star conform to various genre tenets, but there’s an energy here that feels different, alive but not from here, breathing through ill-formed lungs, and not at all good for the wrong personal encounter. Sort of like the first time Portal played mind games. Or, when Deathspell Omega put Schoenberg to black metal. Or, when Beherit made us really uncomfortable. This is “Scar Inscriptions” in part and whole.

Says JL: “Scar Inscriptions” presents ascension through Sin, or how the act of Sin would be divine.

“As I wither away into the depths of time,

these grand revelations of the great nothing

turn my spirit hollow, and my will to ash,

as I gaze into the depths of Her madness.

“The Arteries of Heresy dives musically into the concept of mankind as the living symbol of Sin. The thousand year kingdom exists in our very being and salvation is in the pits of Hell. Hope had never abandoned us, it never existed.”

With minds flayed, hands adorned, and ear bleeding, here’s Devouring Star’s “Scar Inscriptions”!

** Devouring Star’s The Arteries of Heresy is out October 26 (with pre-orders live on September 17) on Dark Descent Records in the US. Click HERE to pre-order. In Europe, The Arteries of Heresy is out on Terratur Possessions. Click HERE to pre-order.