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TORPOR
Đungeon Đescent

Dying Victims Productions (2026)
Rating: 8/10

I’m glad that the Dying Victims label picked this Polish clan up for their debut full-length album. Đungeon Đescent has a rather unusual style and should appeal to anyone who likes unorthodox heavy metal.

I can’t lie, when I first heard these guys a few years ago I couldn’t help think of a heavy metal version of punk legends The Damned mixed with a moodier Blind Guardian and Omen. I guess that was down to the intriguing vocals of chief warbler Franciszek Archont. But it’s not just his off kilter voice which keeps one guessing, the whole sound of Torpor is one that’s engrossing whether it’s those tempo shifts, killer melodies and general atmosphere.

The band has existed for almost ten years so it’s surprising it’s taken so long for this platter to be born, but now that it’s upon us dive into its mystical levels. The experience is somewhat fleeting at just over 32 minutes, but after a short instrumental intro (‘Entrance’) we are into the depths of ‘Trespassing The Sanctuary’, a riveting rocker that’s both dark and heavy while also flirting with an epic power metal ethos, more so in the croons of Archont, who also plays bass and organ.

The song literally rumbles like an incoming storm, and given extra density by the drums of the formidably named Bloodhammer. The drifts between dark majesty and striding fantasy are bolstered by the beefy axe work of Mike Magister I.V., a mercurial yet underrated gunslinger and sword swinger who drives the album through caverns and coves as if he were an untouchable wizard beaming light into the blackness.

‘Armoured Skeleton’ is utterly bonkers, yet imagine being a kid in the 80s and stumbling on this oddball cousin in the import racks, slapping it on the turntable then hearing Archont waffle: “Ceremonial halls of stone, corridors beneath the earth, dawnless centuries to come within the burial mound preserved. Eversealed behind the massive gateway. Posthumously assigned to stay beyond the light of day. Ossified remains laid aside of mortal reigns. Mourning chants resound through last descend deep underground”. It’s the sort of fantasy realm tomfoolery straight from the Helms Deep, Manilla Road and Cirith Ungol songbook… and I love it.

With every steady thunderclap of drums and brooding riff I’m left wiping away an attic load of dust from my lungs, so deeply plummeted have I into this metal domain. I love the sudden speedier segment on ‘Armoured Skeleton’, the mob skipping into early Iron Maiden mode to create further layers of dust. The whole stench is of a time long lost yet often recreated so poorly, but Torpor stride nonchalantly as the beery jig of the title track invades your campfire silence with its hefty bass and booming drums. I can’t fault the production, although I’m unsure if the wafts of nostalgia are intentional.

Late in this chapter, the epic throes of ‘Scythian Chase / Last Of Raids’, gallops to a merry rhythm matched emphatically by the lyrics which sound like some ancient tapestry script scrawled by the local yarn spinner: “Rushing the steppe throughout the depth of lonely night, in stars of ours without the doubt I found delight, For they have led my way ahead to something more, chanting my song I’ll ride along champions of yore”. The engaging and poetic descriptions are as consistent as the musical prose, the axe work smoothly thundering across the battlefields.

There’s something more pensive about ‘Polybolos’, however, the decidedly Gothic vocal tones are both commands and reflective sullen warnings. Musically, this is the steadiest the trio gets, almost drifting in doomy fashion through the depths of 1986, as is the trudge of ‘Return To The Surface’. Archont pounds his chest through leathery battle vest as he watches the flocks scatter in awe of his presence. Strange, because if you rough up the sound of this and lighten it all to a scraping drizzle, this could easily be one of those glum black metal releases.

One could imagine such cheese dripping through the portcullis of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal scene, so there really is a genuine odd and stuffy feel about this debut and one which lingers long into the late hours and the nostrils.

Neil Arnold

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