Born in Black

Born in Black is the heavy/doom side-vehicle that Argentine-born guitarist Thormianak - longtime engine of Brasília pagan black metal institution Miasthenia and the ritual project Omfalos - launched in 2015 to house compositions that did not fit his other groups. The result is one of the most quietly interesting Brazilian small-circle records of its decade, because the lineup reads like a who's-who of the country's underground: Lord Vlad of cult Brazilian death/black act Malefactor on vocals, fellow Malefactor member Danilo Coimbra (also Divine Pain and Burn in Pain) adding lead guitar, Sub Umbra of the experimental Poeticus Severus and The UnhaliGäst on bass, and V. Digger of Miasthenia and Device behind the kit. Their self-titled debut arrived in March 2016, nine tracks tracked across the home studios of Thormianak, Sub Umbra, Coimbra and engineer Clã - a stitched-together approach that matches the album's roving lyrical map of death, hallucination, and visions of the cosmos and other planets, themes that pull Thormianak's pagan and esoteric writing out of black metal's ritualism and into something closer to traditional doom's cosmic horror. A second LP, Moving Out the Gate, followed in 2022, extending the project's reach and confirming that what began as an outlet for spare songs had become a real band. Born in Black sits at a peculiar Brazilian intersection: too song-oriented and melodic for the war-metal lineage their members otherwise serve, too heavy and esoterically minded for orthodox NWOBHM revivalism. Instead they occupy the space carved out by Brazilian heavy/doom outsiders - a tradition of musicians from the country's most extreme bands stepping sideways into riff-driven, Sabbath-and-Mercyful-Fate-shaped territory while keeping the lyrical darkness intact.