Review by Norbert on July 22, 2026.

There are albums you can pigeonhole after just a few notes. Then there are those that make you wonder whether you've accidentally put your headphones on backwards—or if the neighbor next door has just started renovating with the help of a possessed cement mixer. "Carmina Inferorum" belongs firmly in the latter category. This is the debut album from the equally mysterious and elusive Polish outfit Kur•Nu•Gi•A. Elusive not because they played two shows and vanished (as far as I know—at least for now—they haven't performed live at all 🙂), but because virtually nobody knows who's behind it. There are masks, there are symbols, there's an aura of secrecy, and absolutely no desire to explain any of it. Even the cover art—a man wearing a gas mask, sitting on a toilet while blowing a trumpet—sends a crystal-clear message: nothing about this is going to be normal.

And it isn't.

A trumpet in metal? Come on... who does that?

The very existence of an album like this shouldn't surprise anyone familiar with Godz Ov War Productions. The label's founder has long possessed an uncanny talent for discovering records that most labels would reject after thirty seconds with a note reading, "Have you completely lost your minds?" Instead of safe, easily marketable copies of whatever happens to be selling, Godz Ov War consistently releases albums that are defiantly uncompromising, wonderfully twisted, and determined to swim against the current. "Carmina Inferorum" fits that philosophy perfectly—this isn't music anyone in their right mind designed for playlists or recommendation algorithms. And that's exactly why it feels so at home in the label's catalog.

Kur•Nu•Gi•A take death metal, black metal, avant-garde, psychedelia, industrial, a pinch of jazz, and probably the instruction manual for an old Soviet washing machine, throw everything into a cauldron, stir it with a broomstick, and happily watch the results unfold. What comes out sounds like Pan.Thy.Monium meeting Oranssi Pazuzu during a séance hosted by H.P. Lovecraft, whose tape recorder has inconveniently broken down halfway through.

Chaos? Absolutely. But the kind of chaos that was apparently drafted with a compass and a set square.

A trumpet in metal? Apparently they didn't get the memo.

The album's greatest strength is that it spends a long time sounding like complete mayhem before you suddenly realize everything is exactly where it's supposed to be. The riffs twist and writhe as if trying to escape the songs entirely. The drums alternately hold everything together and deliberately try to tear it apart. The vocals sound like a conversation between a demon and a broken vacuum cleaner. Yet somehow the whole thing never falls apart. There is method to the madness. The only problem is that the method seems to have been written in cuneiform and hidden somewhere in Kurnugi—the Sumerian Land of No Return from which the band borrowed its name.

A trumpet in metal? Give it another song—you'll stop asking.

And yes... the trumpet.

It isn't here to play triumphant fanfares or nostalgic melodies. It's an instrument of existential discomfort. The moment it appears, everything becomes... strange. Stranger. So strange that you begin to suspect your coffee machine of maintaining close ties with the Cult of Cthulhu. And once 'Snake Is Blind' lets the trumpet loose in earnest, you realize the saxophone in black metal was merely the warm-up act.

A trumpet in metal? Apparently so. And somehow, it actually works.

Perhaps the album's most impressive achievement is that Kur•Nu•Gi•A never experiments simply for the sake of being experimental. This isn't a contest to see how many bizarre ideas can be crammed into thirty-five minutes. Every dissonance, every seemingly misplaced phrase, every absurd juxtaposition serves to build the oppressive atmosphere of that ancient Sumerian Land of No Return. There is no light here. No comfort. No chance to catch your breath. Only the unmistakable feeling that someone has locked you in a basement with a possessed brass band.

A trumpet in metal? Better than a third guitarist.

This certainly isn't an album for everyone, and I suspect the band knows that perfectly well. If you're looking for straightforward riffs, shower-friendly choruses, and traditional song structures, you'll probably feel like a tourist who meant to book a vacation on the Baltic coast but somehow ended up in the Sumerian underworld instead. But if you enjoy music that demands repeated listens—music capable of confusing, irritating, amusing, and astonishing you all within the same hour—then "Carmina Inferorum" repays the investment many times over. It's one of those records that leaves you wondering whether you've just listened to a metal album, a psychological experiment, or the audio documentation of an exorcism that went spectacularly wrong.

A trumpet in... metal?

By the time the album ends, you no longer find yourself wondering whether the instrument belongs in extreme metal. Instead, you start wondering why more bands haven't had the courage to use one.

Rating: 9 out of 10