::REVIEW::

German black metal veterans Pest return from the grave with Eternal Nightmares, their first album in over a decade, out through Heidens Hart. Formed in 1997 and silenced by the death of drummer Mrok, the band, now consisting of Scum, Atax, and Mr. Blasphemy, resumes exactly where their legacy froze - in the cold, minimal orthodoxy of true black metal. Recorded entirely in their rehearsal room, the album rejects polish and progress alike, capturing a sound as primitive, raw, and unrepentant as it was twenty-five years ago.
The title track bursts open with savage intent, tremolo riffs, and hammering blasts in the vein of early @Darkthrone or @Gorgoroth. “Winds of Death” and “Running in Rage” dwell in misty, mid-tempo desolation, their hypnotic repetition invoking the band’s subtle medieval streak, while “The Gates” closes with decay and lunar melancholy. Each track operates on strict minimalism, no variation, no escape, but within that narrow frame, Pest achieves a rare cohesion. Their devotion to monotony becomes its own statement of purity, a refusal to modernize or sentimentalize a genre born from isolation.
Eternal Nightmares offers no reinvention, no gesture toward evolution. It is instead an act of preservation, a stubborn, hand-forged relic from a time when black metal meant austerity, not affectation. Pest’s return does not seek revival, it reaffirms endurance. A grim, trance-inducing monument to the discipline of staying dead yet refusing to disappear.

Review written by FuegoCasa in collaboration with Headbangers Australia in November 2025.