Between 1994 and 1996, in the wake of criminal events linked to national and local Satanism, the Roman Castles, an ancient and mystical Italic area south of Rome, enclosed in its unique morphology of Dragon's skull, could not but be the materic womb of Occultum Magnificentia, an ectoplasmic project ejected from the mind of Diabolical Egipan 666, which follows a drastic break with previous musical experiences as well as in search of his own black metal sound capable of representing the beauty and purity of the Luciferian doctrine.
The band name is in broken-Latin and means "wandering path towards the absolute".
Initially born as mono-combo, with the first demo "Silens Deflagrantis" in 1999 the line-up is a duo with Silentis Puer 888 on guitar, after almost three years of ideological and spiritual self-formation of the band.
The sound on this tape was strongly influenced by Mysticum, Darkthrone and Mütiilation, but characterized by an own hypnotic riffing-style based on the alternation of open strings, in abundant dissonance between them.
Troubled by the increasingly Satanist direction of the band and founding member Diabolical Egipan 666, Silentis Puer 888 left the project in 2000, not before immortalizing his presence in an early version of the track "Satanick Astral Osmosis" (initially recorded for a 7 "split w/ Nefarium later canceled) and at the dawn of the recordings of the second official demo, "Sorath", of which Diabolical Egipan takes on all the instrumental parts, thus marking the definitive reabsorption to the primordial state of one-demon band, celebrated with the slight change of moniker in "Okkultum Magnificentia", with the two "k" in place of the two "c", according to a precise esoteric meaning.
The second demo was released in the first days of 2001. Musically, it enters a slow-tempo occult black metal, characterized by inserts of keyboards and electronic interventions, in order to underline the more ritualistic and meditative aspects of the concept, invoking the end of the old beliefs and the rise of the Man-God.
The tape captures the attention of Indie label Maggot Productions (home of Evol, Liar Of Golgotha, Satanel ...) for which the 7" "Satanick Astral Osmosis " will be released in 2002, with an unexpected return to a faster and more ferocious black metal, extremely hypnotic and mesmerizing, satanic and qliphotic, reminiscent of great albums like Necromass' "Mysteria Mystica Zofiriana", Immortal's "Pure Holocaust" or even Marduk's "Opus Nocturne".
Meanwhile, Diabolical Egipan had already joined Arimonium Rex, the first Roman black metal along with Dungeon, baptizing himself with the demon-name Aeshma Daeva (according to the demonolatric concept of the band) and seeing himself deeply committed to making the band's first MCD (streamable here:
youtu.be/Bevt7-AFlng), whose recording sessions also include Okkultum Magnificentia's back then last track, "A Shadow Above The Ruins", for a 4 way split on red 10 ," Maggot War Command", realized posthumously; in fact, within a year, after a reissue on cassette of early demos from Okkultum Magnificentia and a last 7" single by Arimonium Rex, the latter celebrate their "suicide", due to both rational and esoteric reasons.
Diabolical Egipan, after a very intense period of maximum absorption of all excesses linked to the Occult and Black Metal, but also full of dramatic episodes, thus awakens alone, disgusted, with in front of him a music scene that he hardly recognizes, as very distant and even antithetical to the old magical days of the 90s.
After a brief hesitation at a planning level, in which a series of releases of Okkultum Magnificentia were already scheduled, including the most important the long-awaited debut-LP on vinyl for Maggot, most of the music and lyrics for this full-length debut were transferred to the Aeonfrost project, whose only CD, 2003's "Templi Oscura", marks a detachment from abyssal violence and qliphotic harmonies that distinguished the classic repertoire of Okkultum Magnificentia, as well as a disillusionment with the occult in favor of a nihilistic research in the meanders of cosmic and natural desolation.
Never wiser choice: Okkultum Magnificentia are rooted in Satanist philosophy and magic and nothing should have altered this nature.
And such they return today, after 18 years (6 + 6 + 6) at the dawn of the great global cataclysm, at the gallop of a Wild Hunt that never dies.
The return of Okkultum Magnificentia sees a musical and literary continuation of the best aspects of both their old repertoire and Arimonium Rex.
If at their beginnings Okkultum Magnificentia celebrated the rise of the god-man, today the advent of their I'll long-distance debut album coincides with the deprivation of any god and the evanescence of man himself.
Now strengthened by a pact signed with the historic French label Drakkar Productions, the eponymous debut sees the light in January 2022. In the words of Diabolical Egipan himself: "self-titled albums are usually either a starting point or represent a point of maximum maturity of a certain artistic phase; in my case it is both. This album seals everything that this band has been able to generate, on every existential level, since 1994, in the most worthy way. It represents a liminal point, where there is the beginning in the end and vice versa.
What initially was supposed to act as a "ritual suicide" has led to my spiritual death indeed".
... IAO means WAR...
