Non Est Deus - Blessings and Curses (2026)^{Release ID: 67595}

About a month ago, I reviewed the newest record from Finnish melodic black metal band, Gaerea, called Loss and I spent more than a little bit of time going over how Century Media Records took a promising little progressive black metal project and sucked the life out of it. In that review I also referred to the band Non Est Deus and how they were also signed to Century Media Records. So given how the Gaerea album review went, I was certainly not looking forward to this.

Upon further research, it tuns out that not only is Non Est Deus still technically signed to Noisebringer Records (which acts as more of a subdivision of Century Media), but I completely forgot to mention one other black metal who is tied to this record label: Kanonenfieber. This makes a lot of sense when you consider that Non Est Deus is one of the projects of the German multi-instrumentalist/producer, Noise. This is all to say that I have been enjoying revisiting some of the older records of Kanonenfieber before their transition to Century Media Records and I was hoping that Non Est Deus would do the same.

And the result was fairly enjoyable, if a little repetitive. The opening of this record with "Show Mercy" into "Forgive Me" is a nice little introduction to the whole "Blessings" and "Curses" that the album is highlighting. The first is fairly calm, almost tranquil in structure, and then "Forgive Me" revs up the intensity with blast beats and tremolo guitars. The rhythmic drive on these more aggressive songs is really intoxicating and leaves me excited to hear what will happen next.

On the downside however, this record seems to lose a lot of steam during its second half. A few tracks following "Prayer II" have the uncanny effect of sounding eerily similar to other tracks on the same album. While the albums closer causes me to lose interest in record time as both "The Sacrifice" and "The Indulgence" share not only the same tonal center's but also the same tempos and dynamic shifts. As a result, a record that begins incredibly well, falls off pretty hard at its conclusion.

And this is not helped that much at all by the lyrical content. Like with Kanonenfieber, Non Est Deus is a conceptual project that, while remaining pretty vague, is meant to be an anti-religious project. With Kanonenfieber I can tolerate it since it's carried by themes that are not a common stereotype in this genre. Part of the reason I enjoyed Aara's 2024 album Eiger was because of the uncommonly found concept. Blessings and Curses carries a lot in common with De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas and as a result, loses some of its charm.

That being said, I still do enjoy enough of Blessings and Curses to give it a fair shake. As a Century Media Records project, this is solid enough black metal to give it a tentative recommendation. I am willing to forgive the momentum loss during the second half and very played out concept because I know that Noise knows what they are doing; they are too talented as a composer/songwriter and as a producer. And it's still played so well that it doesn't bother me the same as it might on other projects. It is better than 2023's Legacy so that's a bonus.

Best Songs: Forgive Me, The Forsaken, Transgression, Kora

For Fans Of: Kononenfieber, Winterfylleth, Yoth Iria