In the annals of South American heavy metal, few narratives possess the tragic gravity and determined resurrection of Herejía. The release of ‘In Nomine Obscuritatis’ on October 31, 2025, marks not merely a commercial entry, but the closing of a circle—a final directive issued from a hospital bed years prior.

Emerging from the cold, high-altitude sprawl of Bogotá, the band has long stood as a counterpoint to the chaotic “ultra metal” of Medellín, offering a sound that is methodically structured and historically aware. Yet, this latest chapter is defined by absence: the album stands as the posthumous realization of the vision of Ricardo Chica Roa, the band’s founder and primary architect, who succumbed to the complications of the pandemic era in 2021.

The path to this release was neither linear nor swift. It is a document of survival, constructed upon the lyrics and compositions Chica Roa left behind—a monument to the philosophical concept of Memento Mori. For the surviving members, the completion of this work was not a choice born of ambition, but a duty entrusted to them by the dead.

The Foundations of Shadow

The genesis of ‘In Nomine Obscuritatis’ traces back to the period immediately following the band’s 2017 return, ‘Renascentia in Tenebris.’ While that album ended a twenty-three-year recording hiatus, the new material was intended to solidify a stylistic metamorphosis. According to guitarist Orlando Parra, who has become the de facto custodian of the band’s legacy, the process was interrupted by a global catastrophe that struck the group with devastating precision.

“‘In Nomine Obscuritatis’ truly began its process shortly after the release of ‘Renascentia in Tenebris’ in 2017,” Parra explains, speaking from Bogotá. “It started with tracks that Ricardo already had at that time, which took shape as time passed. He was truly a very prolific lyricist and, at the same time, a very good musical composer.”

This immediacy allowed for a fundamental shift in methodology. Unlike ‘Renascentia in Tenebris,’ where orchestral arrangements were retrofitted onto compositions that had existed in the live repertoire for a decade, ‘In Nomine Obscuritatis’ was conceived as a holistic entity. The metal instrumentation and symphonic layers were composed in tandem, resulting in a work of heightened conceptual cohesion.

Camilo Valencia notes that on tracks like ‘Arise: The Son of Dawn’ and ‘Fallen Angel’s Serenade,’ the orchestra assumes the protagonist’s role, with guitars serving as rhythmic architecture. Conversely, on ‘Blackheart,’ the guitars drive the narrative, their riffs mirrored by the symphonic arrangement.

The production timeline, stretching from 2019 through 2025, reflects a struggle against logistical paralysis, technical setbacks, and personal grief. In the early stages, Chica Roa entrusted the orchestral arrangements to Andrés Triana—who remained with the project until early 2023—while ceding the musical composition of key tracks like ‘In Death We Trust’ and ‘Demonology’ to Parra. However, the process was fraught with obstacles. While Chica Roa left a near-complete lyrical blueprint, the track ‘Eternal Rise’ stands as a notable exception: a tribute penned by Triana, serving as a eulogy from the living to the departed.

Following the imposition of quarantine measures in early 2020—a period that facilitated focus but ultimately claimed Chica Roa’s life—the band faced critical sonic challenges. Dissatisfied with initial mixes, they made the arduous decision to re-record the bass and drums entirely, eventually placing the final mix and master in the hands of engineer Jaime Suarez to achieve the album’s definitive sound.

The result is a palpable sonic evolution from the singles released just years prior; the final album cuts boast a heavier, more organic rhythm section, finally achieving the equilibrium between orchestral density and visceral clarity that the band had long sought.

The emotional centerpiece of the record, ‘In Death We Trust,’ serves as a harrowing premonition. The lyrics were penned by Chica Roa following a near-death experience that predated the pandemic by two years. It was a rehearsal for the inevitable.

“On one occasion, he was in such a critical condition at a medical center that he felt his passing was imminent,” Parra recalls with solemnity. “That afternoon, he called Camilo Bautista and me to speak. He practically bid us farewell and charged us with ensuring that Herejía continued after his death. After overcoming that episode, he composed ‘In Death We Trust,’ which is an ode to death—a reflection on how she accompanies us from the moment of birth, walks with us throughout our entire existence, and, ultimately, never fails us.”

A Sonic Genealogy

Fully grasping the weight of this release requires contextualizing Herejía within the broader, often turbulent history of Colombian music. While the public record has occasionally been ambiguous regarding their origins—citing both 1988 and 1991—the band views their timeline with distinct clarity.

The initial meeting of minds between Chica Roa and vocalist Nelson Garcia occurred in 1988, a time when the country was engulfed in narco-violence and social unrest. In those nascent stages, with Ricardo on vocals and Nelson on guitar, the duo pursued a raw heavy metal sound, chasing the shadows of thrash and the black metal of Venom. However, the “epic formation” that produced their seminal 1994 demo, ‘Extractum ex Infernis,’ solidified in 1991 with a complete lineup: Jorge Patiño on drums, Hoover Gomez on bass, Garcia on vocals, and Chica Roa shifting to guitar.

That early era was defined by scarcity. Unlike the state-supported cultural infrastructures of Scandinavia that nurtured the second wave of black metal, the Bogotá scene was an exercise in sheer will. Camilo Valencia, a current member of the band, notes that while he did not live through those formative years, the oral history passed down by Chica Roa paints a picture of artisanal resistance against social prejudice.

“It was an emerging scene where metal was made however one could,” Valencia says, noting that distribution relied on informal networks in the city center and concerts were relegated to humble community halls. “It was difficult to obtain instruments, to think of labels and studios focused on metal… a difficult context but one in which the musical ideas captured in ‘Extractum ex Infernis’ could be developed.”

Contrary to the perception of a twenty-three-year hiatus between recordings, Parra clarifies that Herejía never truly ceased operations. The years following ‘Extractum ex Infernis’ were defined by a relentless live schedule, including a pivotal appearance at Festival Rock al Parque in 1996 alongside new recruits Oscar Moreno (ex-Coda), keyboardist Cesar Negret, and bassist Luis Alfonso “Pocho.”

During this period, the band refined its sound on stage, sharing bills with international heavyweights like Vital Remains and Destruction. Parra himself, now the guitarist, spent years in the band’s technical crew before finally joining the lineup in 2016 at Chica Roa’s insistence, forming the creative partnership that would birth ‘Renascentia in Tenebris.’

The evolution from the raw, thrash-adjacent sounds of the early 1990s to the polished, symphonic density of the 2025 release is not a rejection of those roots but a refinement of them. Parra asserts that the symphonic ambition was always present, foreshadowed in the 1994 demo—specifically on tracks like ‘Atrium Celta’ and the intro—through the inclusion of classical guitar passages and Gregorian chants.

These were early, if rudimentary, signals of a vision that Chica Roa possessed from the outset. The track ‘Demonology’ explicitly bridges this divide, employing rapid, aggressive riffing to evoke the band’s primal era while benefiting from modern production standards.

“I wanted it to have a slightly raw sonority with respect to the other tracks on the album,” Parra notes regarding ‘Demonology,’ recalling that when he presented the primary demo, the intensity was such that it drew comparisons to the Swedish black metal band Watain. “Perhaps for me, recalling the sound of Herejía in the 90s, but taking good care of the harmonic and melodic structure.”

For Parra, this journey confirms that the band’s trajectory is not divided into two distinct eras, but is rather a single continuous thread. He maintains that their work has always revolved around the same immutable musical and philosophical concepts—a singular legacy left by Chica Roa in his capacity not just as a founder, but as a “friend, musician, composer, and teacher.”

The Philosophy of Dissent

The nomenclature of the band—Herejía (“Heresy”)—is not merely a genre trope but a deliberate intellectual stance. In the context of Latin America, a region historically dominated by religious and political hegemony, the adoption of such a title is an act of defiance. The band’s output, particularly the Latin-titled works, engages with medieval obscurantism as a mirror to modern suppression of thought.

“Herejía criticizes the persecution of freedom of thought, which has been present in religious dogmas and politics,” Valencia observes. He directs his critique specifically at institutions that claim to possess an “absolute, irrefutable truth.” For the band, the title ‘In Nomine Obscuritatis’ references the historic suppression of knowledge, a dynamic that remains potent in the contemporary landscape. “To be a heretic is to have that capacity to question what happens around you, to have a critical and independent thought, not to follow a herd unconsciously or marry a specific ideology or belief.”

This rigorous conceptual framework demands a visual and atmospheric aesthetic of equal weight. Following an exhaustive international search for an artist capable of mirroring their sonic narrative, the band secured the rights to ‘S. Matteo e l’Angelo Tetramorfo Buono’ by the Italian artist Ettore Aldo del Vigo. The work, which depicts the human form in a state of submission to death, visually anchors the album’s overarching meditation on mortality.

Yet, the album’s influences extend far beyond the visual. Parra identifies the cinematic grandeur of composers John Williams and Hans Zimmer as primary touchstones for the orchestral arrangements, seeking a narrative scope closer to film scores than traditional metal accompaniment.

This engagement with “high art” permeates the tracklist, weaving threads of Goya’s visual darkness with canonical literature and Romantic music. ‘Retribution is My Name’ channels the claustrophobic vengeance of Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ (1846), while the mournful resonances of ‘In Death We Trust’ evoke a subtle, perhaps subconscious, reverence for Chopin’s ‘Funeral March.’

This philosophical underpinning extends to the band’s integration of indigenous textures. The inclusion of “folkloric percussion”—executed by drummer Camilo Bautista, a specialist in regional traditions—is not an act of tourism but an acknowledgment of identity. Parra emphasizes that as Latin Americans, the influence of ancestral sounds is inescapable.

Tracks like ‘Primal Rage’—a collaborative piece featuring contributions from Camilo Giraldo and bassist John Porras—harness these rhythms to create an allegory of pre-Hispanic cultures, grounding the European-influenced symphonic metal in the soil of the Andes.

The Burden of Legacy

The release of ‘In Nomine Obscuritatis’ marks a transition from preservation to evolution. The band has chosen to release the album independently, bypassing their previous arrangement with HateWorks to maintain control over the timeline and distribution. For Orlando Parra, this was a pragmatic necessity born of frustration.

During the band’s most active touring period in history—spanning Central America, Mexico, and Colombia—they found themselves performing without physical media to offer a supportive audience. Unable to afford further delays or depend on third-party agendas after years of financial and temporal investment, the band reclaimed total agency over the release to ensure their capital and effort would no longer be stalled.

To navigate this independence, the band has adopted a phased distribution strategy. Valencia highlights Bandcamp as their primary digital hub, noting its unique ability to emulate the physical experience by granting listeners access to digital booklets—a crucial feature for a band so heavily invested in narrative and art.

For the tangible object, a strictly limited edition of fifty copies will follow the streaming debut, ensuring the physical artifact remains a prized possession. Looking further ahead, the band has already secured alliances to press and distribute a digipack edition internationally in 2026, ensuring the album reaches the global market that HateWorks was originally intended to serve.

This pivot occurs within a Colombian metal ecosystem that Valencia describes as a sphere of contradictions. Beyond the logistics, Valencia emphasizes the sheer existential weight of operating within a genre that remains stubbornly underground. In a cultural geography dominated by tropical and urban rhythms, maintaining a symphonic death metal project at a professional standard is, in his view, a filter that few survive. “It is not for everyone,” he admits, citing the perpetual struggle to maintain a committed lineup and the rigors of composition as daily hurdles that can only be cleared through “total honesty” and love for the craft.

While a recent tour through Central America and Mexico highlighted the unique strength of Colombia’s decentralized festival circuit—a robust infrastructure often absent elsewhere—a critical cultural gap remains. Valencia points to a disparity in audience engagement compared to Europe, where the consumption of physical media and merchandise is vital for sustaining artists.

Juan David Lucero expands on this, diagnosing a deeper societal “subestimation” of domestic art. He argues that while local musicians adhere to rigorous standards of technique and musicality that rival international peers, Colombian society at large has yet to view rock as a viable industry, relegating it to an isolated niche.

This disconnect was starkly visible during the band’s travels; Lucero noted that audiences in Central America often displayed a fervor for Colombian metal that exceeded the enthusiasm found at home. Furthermore, he posits that the global perception of Colombia as strictly an exporter of traditional or autochthonous music creates a unique friction—one that extreme metal bands must navigate to prove that the country’s musical identity is far more volatile and diverse than the stereotypes suggest.

Lucero nuances this critique by acknowledging a unique structural advantage: Colombia’s robust system of state-funded, free-access festivals. From Manizales to Bogotá, public investment ensures that world-class metal reaches audiences without the barrier of entry fees—a cultural luxury virtually unknown in many other nations. However, he warns of a persistent technical hierarchy within this system.

While international headliners are granted precise compliance with their technical riders, local acts are frequently relegated to “generic” setups. For the scene to truly compete globally, Lucero argues, the infrastructure must pivot to treat its domestic creators not merely as support acts for foreign icons, but as the primary beneficiaries of this public investment, afforded the same technical dignity as their European counterparts.

Looking forward, the surviving members—along with new additions—face the complex task of navigating a future without their founder. Yet, Parra insists that the path is clear and the band remains in active production. The archive of Chica Roa contains sufficient lyrical material for a complete subsequent album, ensuring his voice will resonate beyond this release.

Crucially, Parra emphasizes that the current lineup possesses the technical and artistic autonomy to execute the sonic, visual, and conceptual standards required to sustain the Herejía legacy.

For Parra, the continuation of Herejía is not a matter of debate. It is the fulfillment of a promise made during that hospital phone call, a covenant between the living and the dead.

“There really was no decision to continue with the band,” Parra concludes. “As I mentioned, Ricardo personally entrusted us with the task of continuing the band… counting on the blessing and collaboration of his family as well as founding members like Nelson and Jorge, with whom we maintain communication. Even former members like Oscar and Cesar Negret encourage the current lineup to continue this labor.”

In this light, ‘In Nomine Obscuritatis’ is more than an anthology of compositions. It is an act of defiance against silence, a confirmation that in the specific cosmology of Herejía, death is not a conclusion, but a companion that has walked beside them all along.