Recorded during the the 10th year of the band's existence with Shaun Cadogan at Last Light Recordings in April 2023. In the aftermath of our debut album, Masque, we met a world of fear induced mania resulting in our own retreat from the glaring light of day and into our respective lairs where we set about working towards what would become our second full length album, Veneration. An intense labour of songwriting emerged during the winters of discontent coupled with the ebb and flow of musicians from the band resulting in a triumph over tragedy for the three core members that now form the nucleus of Vircolac. The album title comes from many epic wanderings through an ancient landscape in solitude, seeing stone monuments from a long forgotten past that were erected to venerate the dead and so, as a nation where veneration is an essential part of the daily life of its people, and the past very much a place where the dead join the living, the question was prompted; who will venerate us? What have we done to warrant any veneration? Thematically, the lyrics reflect on the many deathly topics infused in our ancient cultural lore. From the bloodshed that has fed the land for generations, to the gods and goddesses still invoked to this day and the fallen martyrs whose idealism never came to pass. And so, as in life, all comes to pass and as we fade, nothing shall remain. Stylistically, Veneration is unquestionably a Death Metal album from beginning to end. Fusing expansive influences from outside the genre to bring a sense of melancholy, despair, triumph, anger and agony. Veneration is a soaring and plunging experience of emotional tumult.
