Two of Finland’s black metal hordes unite to compile and recite “Dead Christ Prayer,” an eight-track split release that represents both the country’s unique tradition and its future. Witchcraft, whose style pays reverence in no subtle way to the great Beherit, returns to expand its imprint and demonstrate its continued adherence to the unrefined bestiality that its primary inspiration pioneered thirty years ago. Its co-conspirators in Aske first inhabited the same time and space as Beherit, but then began an eighteen-year hiatus in 1998, returning in 2016 to embark on a second blasphemous stint of new recordings, which have culminated in this effort. “Dead Christ Prayer” thus presides over the exsanguination of the lifeless body of the false savior and the ensuing transfusion ritual, combining the old blood of Aske with the new blood of Witchcraft to perpetuate the cycle of evil.

– C. Conrad