INQUISITION · Bloodshed Across The Empyrean Altar Beyond The Celestial Zenith | SMOKE RED 2LP

Red smoked double vinyl. Limited to 500 copies.

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

There is a moment, somewhere in the middle of "Wings of Anu", when the whole architecture of this record reveals itself: two musicians, no bass, no safety net, and yet a sound so vast it feels like standing under a collapsing cathedral. Inquisition have always been a law unto themselves, and "Bloodshed Across the Empyrean Altar Beyond the Celestial Zenith" is their most widescreen statement — a 2016 album that took their trademark hypnotic tremolo spirals and stretched them into something almost cosmic in scope. The riffs do not simply attack; they orbit. They circle and circle until the listener loses all sense of where the ground was.

What makes this one special is the patience of it. The duo let ideas breathe, let a single chord ring out long enough to become a mood, then slam the door with a riff that lands like a meteor strike. The production is cavernous without ever turning muddy — every cymbal wash, every rasped invocation sits exactly where it should, and the long, ritualistic titles ("Through the Divine Spirit of Satan a Glorious Universe Is Known") are matched by music that genuinely earns its grandeur. It is theatrical, yes, but it is also relentless, and the closing triptych of "A Magnificent Crypt of Stars", the outro and the coda drifts off into strange, cold, beautiful territory.

This 2026 re-release brings the album back on red smoked double vinyl, pressed in a run of 500 copies. For anyone who missed it the first time around, this is the moment to correct that mistake.

For fans of: Dissection, Emperor, Immortal, Satyricon, Absu

Other Versions

CD · 13,99 € GREY MARBLED 2LP · 26,99 € 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