Cēsis doom death metal band Procession releases second album "Shadows Have Fiends" and tours the Baltics
Procession, a doom death metal band from Cēsis, Latvia, has released its second studio album "Shadows Have Fiends" and begun a tour of Latvia and Lithuania. The reviewer gave the album five points out of five.
Procession, a doom death metal band from the Latvian town of Cēsis, has released a new studio album, "Shadows Have Fiends". A concert series called "Shadows Over Baltics" supports the release across the Baltic states, and the first show has already taken place in Tallinn, at the club The Krypt. A reviewer for the Latvian newspaper NRA rates the album five out of five.
Band history
The band was founded in Cēsis in 1993 and broke up in 1999 without releasing the recordings it had already prepared. Its return followed the death of guitarist Gundars Vīksna, nicknamed Zāģis, in 2022. A memorial event named "Zāģis" was held in his honour at the countryside home of bassist Uldis Voitkevičs (Zombis) in Vaive; the event is now known as Zombīfest. There, Voitkevičs reunited under the Procession name with guitarist Aigars Kalniņš, guitarist Jānis Aizkalns and vocalist Sandis Korps, both of whom played in the band in the mid-1990s, and drummer Kristiāns Voitkevičs of the band Mindesign. The debut album "The Side Of The River" came out in 2023.
The new album
"Shadows Have Fiends" has nine songs. Unlike the earlier old school death metal material, Aizkalns dominates the new record: he wrote all the music and lyrics. The style leans more toward melodic technical death metal. The reviewer names "The Banner Of The Brittle" as the best track and also highlights "The Dimmer's Call", "Under The Watchful Eye Of The Star" and "In Devotion". He sees the closing track, "In A Dream", as the weak point.
Line-up changes and concerts
Korps sang on the album but left the band at the start of summer to work abroad. In July, Jānis Boļšaks of the band Sanctimony helped out at concerts in Līgatne and at the Cēsis city festival. Aizkalns himself has now taken over the microphone. Because of health problems, Deniss Denisenko of Sanctimony will replace Zombis at some shows.
Upcoming dates: 17 October at Fonoklubs in Cēsis, 24 October at Fontaine Palace in Liepāja, 5 November at the Depo club in Rīga, 13 November at the Melno Cepurīšu Balerija venue in Jelgava, 20 November at Lemmy Club in Kaunas and 21 November at Narauti in Vilnius.
