INQUISITION · Bloodshed Across the Empyrean Altar Beyond the Celestial Zenith | GREY MARBLED 2LP

Gray with white and black marbled double vinyl. Limited to 300 copies.

Background information about 'Bloodshed Across the Empyrean Altar Beyond the Celestial Zenith'

There is a moment about forty seconds into "From Chaos They Came" where the riff suddenly opens up like a trapdoor in the floor of a cathedral, and you realize you are not listening to a normal black metal record. Inquisition built "Bloodshed Across the Empyrean Altar Beyond the Celestial Zenith" as a cathedral of their own — vast, cold, weirdly beautiful, and utterly uncompromising. The 2016 album returns here in a fresh 2026 re-release, and honestly, it has aged like something carved in stone rather than recorded on tape.

What makes this record so special is the way Dagon's guitar playing refuses to behave. Those endlessly spiraling, almost hypnotic tremolo figures don't just accompany the songs, they circle them like satellites, while Incubus lays down drum patterns that feel both ritualistic and strangely groovy. Add the famously alien, croaking vocal delivery and you get a sound that is instantly recognizable and completely impossible to imitate. Tracks like "Vortex from the Celestial Flying Throne of Storms" and "A Black Aeon Shall Cleanse" stretch out into long, patient structures where atmosphere matters as much as aggression, and the closing "Coda: Hymn to the Cosmic Zenith" lands like the last candle going out in an empty hall.

It is cosmic, it is theatrical, it is deeply strange — and it still hits like a wall. For anyone who likes their extreme metal with ambition and a genuine sense of scale, this one belongs on the shelf.

For fans of: Emperor, Dissection, Sargeist, Rotting Christ, Absu

Other Versions

CD · 13,99 € BLACK TAPE · 11,99 € CD · Sold out CD DIGIBOX · Sold out DIGIPAK CD · 15,99 € BLACK 2LP · Sold out

Track listing

LP 1:
A1. Intro: The Force Before Darkness
A2. From Chaos They Came
A3. Wings of Anu
A4. Vortex from the Celestial Flying Throne of Storms
B1. A Black Aeon Shall Cleanse
B2. The Flames of Infinite Blackness Before Creation
B3. Mystical Blood

LP 2:
C1. Through the Divine Spirit of Satan a Glorious Universe Is Known
C2. Bloodshed Across the Empyrean Altar Beyond the Celestial Zenith
C3. Power from the Center of the Cosmic Black Spiral
D1. A Magnificent Crypt of Stars
D2. Outro: The Invocation of the Absolute, the All, the Satan
D3. Coda: Hymn to the Cosmic Zenith

Manufacturer: Agonia Records, P. O. Box 273, 64-920 Pila 1, Poland, Contact: agoniarecords.com