Demoncy - Empire of the Fallen Angel
Review: Bands known for acerbic nihilistic chromatic music get wrongly accused of selling out or failing if they attempt melodic music. On Empire of the Fallen Angel, Demoncy make an album every bit as good as their first but not as hard-hitting as Joined in Darkness, with two complications: first, and of no consequence, it is a Sacramentum/Graveland melodic metal hybrid, and second, of greater consequence, the vocals are monotonous in delivery and timbre and do not fit the music.
Back when this music was written, the initial Norse trend had been replaced by second-wave bands like Graveland and Dissection in the public eye. These bands tried to fuse the fast blistering sound of early black metal with the archly romantic sweeping melodies of bands like Emperor and Immortal, building on the work of bands like Impaled Nazarene who made orotund but simplified, savage melodic black metal. Demoncy adapted, and suffered from writing music to be released four years later, and so caught up with the evolution of the genre in this lengthy work but missed the trend that would recognize how strong this album is.
1. Enchanted Woods of Forgotten Lore (1:05)
2. The Obsidian Age of Ice (3:47)mp3 sample 
3. Empire of the Fallen Angel (3:21)
4. Night Song (Apocalyptic Dawn) (3:22)
5. Sepulchral Whispers (4:22)
6. Shadows of the Moon (The Winter Solstice) (4:42)mp3 sample
7. My Kingdom Enshrouded In Necromantical Fog (4:19)
8. Warmarch of the Black Hordes (3:28)
9. The Ode to Eternal Darkness (6:36)mp3 sample
Most melodies resemble patterns used by either Graveland up until 1997, or Sacramentum from their first full-length, fusing a gentle sense of mathematical complement in melodic beauty with a surging forward motion and grounding in abrupt shifts of chromatic intervals or fifths. The resulting music sounds sustaining through its energy tinged with echoing sounds of the past. While the vocals overlaying it are processed and on-beat and uniform in rhythm, giving people little to grasp to differentiate this otherwise quality album from those around it, that minor detail changes little. This powerful album was overlooked and should be rediscovered.