About a week and a half ago, I receive another box of black metal hate from my new favorite black metal label: Occultum Productions. Contained within this blasphemous box were the newest releases from TOTALER KRIEG, Sombre Presage, GRIMLAIR, and the newest split from Thanatos and HADAN DRAILH. I also received what I believe was the very last set of Sombre Presage’s Commémoration 2005 box set containing all of their releases of 2005 and early 2006. Each Sombre Presage disc came in a beautifully printed paper slip case and each one was hand numbered 72/111 (all of their discs have been in 111 disc print runs). Along with the CDs, I also received their demo tape from 2005 which is pro-pressed on a high quality tape. These discs also came in a nice black box with the Sombre Presage logo on the front with an incense burner inside. Talk about cult!
As with every Occultum release, each disc is very limited press, with most releases being between 33 and 111 pressed discs. Each CD also comes in a black DVD case with beautiful accompanying artwork. Unfortunately for people like me who like to buy limited run discs, none of the discs are labeled with their number in the pressing. Also, none of the discs come with liner notes or lyrics which is good for me since I can’t speak French! TOTALER KRIEG’s disc was a special edition that came with a nice but albeit rather dangerous surprise: a foot of coiled barbed wire. I’m not sure how this even made it through customs but it surely cut my fingers once I took it out. Also, the Sombre Presage release is a specially pressed miniCD tribute to everyone’s love-them-or-hate-them ambient black metal band of hate: Burzum. Each album is amazingly different from the others in that Occultum does not sign one type of black metal band, they have artists spanning from by-the-book blasphemous black metal to piano concerto one-man groups.
This shipment nearly completes my collection of material from this incredible French label. I only lack three releases from their entire catalog and unfortunately, one release is out of print (CULT010 by Sinistre if anyone wants to send it to me) and the other was never fully released (CULT003 by Sombre Presage, no luck on getting that!). This is one label I suggest everyone check out because they put out some of the most quality underground French black metal that I’ve heard in a while.
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