The four-piece Columbia band Prosperity Gospel is definitely not a religious group. In fact, they’re about as far away from gospel as you can get. The band touts itself as “anti-Fascist post-black metal.” 

The band’s foundation is in a genre called “black metal,” a particularly brutal strain of heavy metal music known for fast tempos, screeching or guttural vocals, heavily distorted guitars and unconventional song structures.

And their two albums on the local record label Comfort Monk, 2021’s “Violently Pulled From Bliss” and the just-released “Society Of The Spectral,” have plenty of musical muscle. There are moments on both albums where it feels like the listener is in the midst of a relentless storm.

Singer/songwriter and guitarist Eddie Newman shrieks and growls as grinding guitar riffs churn and the rhythm section coils and uncoils like a serpent.

So there’s plenty here for black metal fans to like, but Prosperity Gospel is more ambitious than most of their peers in the genre. Newman works all sorts of interesting dynamics into his songs. “Being Into Having,” the first song on the band’s new album, opens with atmospheric, moody guitars and subtle percussion rather than a tide of aggression, and Newman mixes his animalistic howl with a more vulnerable, straightforward approach.

A deep dive into the lyrics reveals Newman’s keen eye for where our society is and where it might be headed. “Being Into Having” cuts to the heart of consumerist culture: “When’d you realize the joy of the hoard?” Newman sings, “The emptiness of want? The connection of surplus?”

“The lyrics are probably the most important part for me,” Newman said. “Everything gets built around lyrics. There is a trend in black metal of bands not releasing lyrics. And if a band doesn’t release lyrics for something, I’m probably not going to listen to it. It says that they don’t think the lyrics are important enough to let people in on them.”

At first, Newman, who has been playing in bands since his early teens, decided to go it alone.

“I wanted to do something by myself that I could just have complete control over and not have to worry an audience,” Newman said. “I’d written a bunch of these songs; I didn’t really have a group that I was playing music with so this was the perfect opportunity to do a one-person project. That’s how the first album got made.”

But a funny thing happened after “Violently Pulled From Bliss” came out in 2021; other musicians noticed and got excited. Newman wasn’t planning to put a band together and perform the album live, but folks around town kept asking when his first show was going to be. 

“And I was just so stoked that other people were enjoying it. So I put together a band in probably the first six months or so after the first record came out,” he said. 

Lead guitarist Don Josey, bassist Marge Bauknight and drummer Mike Lambert came on board. Almost immediately the group began working on songs for the next album.

As excited as he was about the new lineup, Newman had to adjust to not being the only musician in the room anymore.

“It took some getting used to, being in a band again and not being the dictator of the world,” Newman laughed. “But the people I’m playing with now, I’ve played in bands with before. They’re good friends of mine. I trust them and I think the only thing that they’ve done to change the music is make it better.”

Now with another genre-bending album under their belts, Prosperity Gospel is ready to howl on stage. Well, most of the time, anyway.

“I will complain about playing shows,” Newman chuckled, “and then I play the show and I think, ‘That was excellent. I need to do that every day!’”

Prosperity Gospel plans to start touring in 2024, follow the band on Instagram @prosperity__gospel