Tag: Horror Sacri

“Soul Hunt” is one of the most direct and visceral tracks on the album — a relentless vision of unseen warfare, where human souls are the prize in an eternal struggle between forces far greater than ourselves. Based on one of my oldest lyrics ever written, the song captures a world drenched in fear and metaphysical violence. Peace is yearned for but never found.

The verses paint a bleak picture: “It’s all over” declares one line; “Bloodstained icons weep in woe” ends another. These aren’t just poetic images — they’re cries from a world where fragile human lives are tossed into a cosmic battleground beyond comprehension. The music echoes this turmoil with razor-sharp, old-school thrash metal riffing, driving the message home with unrelenting force.

At its heart, “Soul Hunt” forms the eschatological core of the album — a dark framework where the sacred collides with the violent. The Latin chorus, “Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna” (“Deliver me, O Lord, from eternal death”), taken from the Roman Catholic Office of the Dead, becomes more than a liturgical chant. It’s a desperate plea for endurance, for grace, for something to hold onto in the face of annihilation.

You can already pre-order the album by clicking here: https://darkwave-metal.bandcamp.com/album/horror-sacri. By pre-ordering, you get one track now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released on the 21^th of August.

“Secreta” — Latin for “secret” or “secrets” — takes its name and text from a lesser-known part of the traditional Roman Catholic Mass: a quiet prayer, spoken in a low voice by the priest at the end of the Offertory. On this album, the prayer becomes something more personal and disquieting — a whispered plea for one’s enemies, delivered from a soul suspended between forgiveness and fragmentation.

Set to a short liturgical text drawn from the Roman Missal, the piece explores the spiritual paradox of wishing well upon those who have wounded us. That fragile state — where faith confronts betrayal — is captured in the song’s shifting musical language. An eerie orchestral introduction sets the tone, enveloping the listener in unease, before giving way to rhythms that echo the rhythmical asymmetry of Balkan dances. The unconventional time signature distorts any sense of calm, as if the soul itself is reeling.

“Secreta“ is both prayer and disorientation — a sacred ritual filtered through the lens of human vulnerability.

You can already pre-order the album by clicking here: https://darkwave-metal.bandcamp.com/album/horror-sacri. By pre-ordering, you get one track now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released on the 21^th of August.

“Miserere” is the sole instrumental piece on the album — a moment of wordless expression that forms a bridge between this release and Darkwave’s earlier, fully instrumental works. Deeply rooted in classical influences, it recalls the spirit of Postcommunio (from the Missa Innominata album), yet pushes beyond it with a more turbulent energy.

At the heart of the track lies a neoclassical guitar theme long waiting for its place — a melodic idea that lingered in creative limbo until now. With this album’s emotional landscape in mind, the timing felt right. “Miserere” became its home, transforming the motif into something darker, heavier, and more unrelenting.

While its structure and tone still reflect a sense of reverence, the inclusion of blastbeats breaks away from the restraint of earlier compositions. The result is a piece that’s simultaneously devotional and defiant — a liturgy not of peace, but of inner unrest.

You can already pre-order the album by clicking here: https://darkwave-metal.bandcamp.com/album/horror-sacri. By pre-ordering, you get one track now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released on the 21^th of August.

“Messiah of Shrinking Shores” unfolds like a sorrowful parable — the story of a soul who gave everything, only to be abandoned by both Heaven and Earth. Written in poetic form years ago, the lyrics speak in third person, echoing the voice of someone who once carried the burdens of others, now discarded, worn down, and left with nothing but silence. “The ashtray of God” — a chilling metaphor for spiritual obsolescence — captures the depth of his disillusionment, culminating in the heartbreaking surrender: “Let me sink into the flood.”

This song gives voice to that universal moment when we feel used up, overlooked, and forgotten — when the world no longer sees us as valuable, only convenient. Hungarian vocalist Fati Urbán lends her angelic, haunting tone to these emotions, adding an ethereal fragility that elevates the pain into something strangely beautiful.

Though the song carries the atmosphere of gothic and doom influences, it never settles into one mood. Progressive metal elements weave through its structure — the intro and outro riffs pulse with complex time signatures, and the chorus rides on staccato rhythms that resist collapse. It’s both a lament and a protest; a farewell and a final cry for meaning.

You can already pre-order the album by clicking here: https://darkwave-metal.bandcamp.com/album/horror-sacri. By pre-ordering, you get one track now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released on the 21^th of August.

“Ego mortuus sum” (“I am dead”) marks a violent turning point on the album — a cry from the edge featuring the fierce vocal presence of Fredrik Keith Croona (Against I). Musically, it’s a collision of extremes: progressive structures twist through shifting time signatures before collapsing into relentless staccato grooves, while old-school death metal riffing forms the scorched earth on which the vocals roar.

The song was born in a moment of spiritual rupture — a place where faith felt hollow and rituals failed to heal. Lying on the metaphorical altar brought not peace, but anguish. The lyrics rage against sacred comfort, throwing brutal imagery into the light: Heaven reimagined as a “cesspool of saints”, sanctity as emptiness. It’s raw, it’s defiant — the sound of someone shouting into the void.

Yet amid the fury, a thread of hope weaves through. The chorus draws from Psalm 29: “Domine, clamavi ad te et sanasti me” — “O Lord, I have cried to thee, and thou hast healed me.” Even at the height of spiritual collapse, the possibility of redemption remains — battered but not erased.

You can already pre-order the album by clicking here: https://darkwave-metal.bandcamp.com/album/horror-sacri. By pre-ordering, you get one track now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released on the 21^th of August.

Impressions… The Black Virgin is rooted in a personal poem written over two decades ago. Originally conceived as a tribute to the gothic metal pioneers Virgin Black — whose music explored the spiritual and the sublime — the piece gradually evolved into something more intimate: a meditation on suffering, endurance, and what it means to remain human beneath unbearable weight.

The lyrics reinterpret the Christian beatitudes through a darker lens, suggesting that perhaps blessed are those who broke beneath their loads. In this worldview, strength lies not in triumph, but in survival — in the quiet defiance of carrying on when all else seems lost. The haunting echo of Virgin Black’s iconic line, “All is lost but hope”, finds its reflection here: “All else is lost, save hope beyond all death.”

There’s no cathartic release in the end, no redemptive arc — only the stark confession of weariness: “For Lord, no more I am the dead or living – a symptom now, a shadow barely breathing.” And yet, beneath the grief, a subtle thread of comfort emerges: a melodic fragment borrowed from the Gregorian chant “Consolamini, popule meus” — “Be comforted, my people.”

Even in desolation, a faint light endures.

You can already pre-order the album by clicking here: https://darkwave-metal.bandcamp.com/album/horror-sacri. By pre-ordering, you get one track now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released on the 21^th of August.

Dies Irae — “The Day of Wrath” — draws its name and inspiration from the iconic medieval Latin hymn that envisions the Last Judgment: a cataclysmic reckoning where the trumpet sounds, the dead rise, and every soul stands trial before an all-powerful Judge. Traditionally sung at Catholic Requiem Masses, this ancient text has haunted Western music and imagination for centuries, inspiring giants like Mozart and Verdi to transform it into timeless works of art.

This reinterpretation takes a more critical and personal path. Rather than presenting the full, fire-and-brimstone narrative, the track distills the original into select verses — fragments that echo through the music like distant voices from a troubled past. The piece challenges the deeply rooted notion of God as a merciless arbiter, replacing fear with reflection. In doing so, it questions how such doctrines have shaped our inner world — replacing love with dread, grace with guilt.

The composition opens and closes with solemn church organ passages, framing the piece like the arches of a ruined cathedral. The final organ reprise, however, carries a subtle shift — a glimmer of hope, as if the weight of centuries-old judgment might finally give way to something more compassionate.

You can already pre-order the album by clicking here: https://darkwave-metal.bandcamp.com/album/horror-sacri. By pre-ordering, you get one track now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released on the 21^th of August.

I’m proud to share with you the official cover artwork of Horror Sacri, the new Darkwave album — a visual that captures the essence of what this record is all about: reverence and decay, silence and scream, light and darkness intertwined in a sacred dance of ruin.

The photo was taken by my dear friend and gifted photographer Márta Sándor, whose eye for beauty hidden in erosion and stillness gave this album its haunting face. Her image of a weatherworn statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary behind rusted bars speaks volumes: not only about religious iconography distorted by time and social constructs, but also about the themes I explore musically — memory, trauma, transcendence, and the blurred line between the sacred and the profane.

Just like the music, this artwork doesn’t offer easy answers. It invites you to look closer, to feel, and perhaps to find a reflection of your own inner ruins.

Horror Sacri consists of eight tracks that blend progressive metal with atmosphere, narrative, and a sense of tragic grandeur. It is my most personal release to date, and having this powerful image as its visual gateway is a privilege and a blessing.

You will find the full album on digital platforms from the 21^th of August, but this cover — this moment frozen in rust and stone — now belongs to it forever.

You can already pre-order the album by clicking here: https://darkwave-metal.bandcamp.com/album/horror-sacri. By pre-ordering, you get one track now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released on the 21^th of August.

As my new album Horror Sacri prepares to unfold its wings, I pause to offer my deepest thanks to the souls who walked beside me in the shadows and light — not only as gifted artists, but as kindred spirits. Their presence shaped this record in ways no words can fully hold.

Freddie (Fredrik Keith Croona; Against I, Terrorbit, Duo Latera) — On Ego Mortuus Sum, your voice strikes like flame in the dark. Thank you for lending it the force of storm and sorrow, of fire and stillness.

https://tfreco.bandcamp.com

Fati (Fati Urbán) — You breathed a sacred ache into Messiah of Shrinking Shores, where every note trembles like a lost prayer. Thank you for turning silence into longing, and longing into light.

https://www.youtube.com/@FatiUrbán

Márti (Márta Sándor) — Your eyes saw beyond appearances. Your photographs do not merely depict — they inhabit the album’s soul: solemn, vulnerable, true.

https://www.instagram.com/sandor_marta

This album bears scars — and blessings. It carries echoes of many voices, and the imprint of generous hands. I’m honored that yours are among them.

Pre-orders are now open: https://darkwave-metal.bandcamp.com/album/horror-sacri