Bal Sagoth
Battle Magic
[Cacophonous]
After having devoured their epic fantasy masterpiece "Starfire..." I had very
high expectations for this one... Let's say that it turned out somewhat
different than I had expected.
With these kind of bombastic fantasy releases, I regard each and every aspect as being important. The band wants to convey the "fantasy feeling" to the listener with their records. Well, dressed up in black clothes and wearing sunglasses doesn't exactly promote that feeling, sword and flag or no sword and flag. The cover seems somewhat put together from different images, and is in a rather cartoon-fantasy style. We see a man, looking strikingly like the vocalist Byron, with a bloody ridiculously large axe in one hand and a sword of even more pompous proportions in the other. His hair looks stupid, it is white and bound in a tail on the top of his head. Besides him is someone with a kind of spear with a blade at the end of it, holding it like a guitar or something similar. He looks like Jonny Maudling the guitar player, so I guess that makes sense. But he doesn't look very "fantasy" either. The rest of the cover looks OK but it all looks to hasty. So, this does not call forth the right mood to listen to Bal-Sagoth, at all. A pity. After forgetting about the cover I'm taking a look at the lyrics and I sigh with relief. They have not betrayed their fantasy concept. To my joy and gratitude the tale about Lord Angsaar, Dark Liege of Chaos continues, and, to my dismay, they are not finishing it on this record... (seems like reading Robert Jordan :)). There are also lyrics about historical events, some gladiator picks a nice fight in a stadium, a man tells about various battles he fought and there is a very sad sad story about a vampire hunter who lost his wife. All in all these are nice but they have a concrete (i.e. not abstract) connection with this world and that's a pity in my opinion. Didn't Byron say that his primary impulse to write those lyrics was escapism? I like to escape this world when listening to Bal Sagoth and do not wish to be reminded of it. Still, this is not a very BIG problem, but it's a small spot on the blazon of Bal-Sagoth. The music is still very good although somewhat less profound and well-thought out than their last CD (comparison is inevitable!). It's all pretty instantaneous as was "Starfire" but that one had more things to be revealed beneath the surface. There are some GREAT transitions in between different parts of a song here (just listen to "A Tale From The Deep Woods"), but these are only moments. There does not seem to be much innovation except in the longest song on this CD, the one about the gladiator. They actually incorporate circus music in this song and it sounds sickeningly pompous and happy, but reading the text along with it I learnt to appreciate it. This CD leans more on moments than on some message conveyed throughout the song or whole record even, and they seem to be using somewhat more conventional and transparent structures (like verse-chorus-verse-chorus). It is nicely polished and the sound is somewhat flat. The whole album is lighter and clearer than the moodier, darker and more epic fantasy-like "Starfire...". All in all this is highly enjoyable but I hope that Bal-Sagoth will not stray any further off the path... Still, lots of bands cannot pull this kind of stuff off. Epic fantasy metal taken to a pompous edge: be warned, or be enchanted.
© 1998 dwaallicht
With these kind of bombastic fantasy releases, I regard each and every aspect as being important. The band wants to convey the "fantasy feeling" to the listener with their records. Well, dressed up in black clothes and wearing sunglasses doesn't exactly promote that feeling, sword and flag or no sword and flag. The cover seems somewhat put together from different images, and is in a rather cartoon-fantasy style. We see a man, looking strikingly like the vocalist Byron, with a bloody ridiculously large axe in one hand and a sword of even more pompous proportions in the other. His hair looks stupid, it is white and bound in a tail on the top of his head. Besides him is someone with a kind of spear with a blade at the end of it, holding it like a guitar or something similar. He looks like Jonny Maudling the guitar player, so I guess that makes sense. But he doesn't look very "fantasy" either. The rest of the cover looks OK but it all looks to hasty. So, this does not call forth the right mood to listen to Bal-Sagoth, at all. A pity. After forgetting about the cover I'm taking a look at the lyrics and I sigh with relief. They have not betrayed their fantasy concept. To my joy and gratitude the tale about Lord Angsaar, Dark Liege of Chaos continues, and, to my dismay, they are not finishing it on this record... (seems like reading Robert Jordan :)). There are also lyrics about historical events, some gladiator picks a nice fight in a stadium, a man tells about various battles he fought and there is a very sad sad story about a vampire hunter who lost his wife. All in all these are nice but they have a concrete (i.e. not abstract) connection with this world and that's a pity in my opinion. Didn't Byron say that his primary impulse to write those lyrics was escapism? I like to escape this world when listening to Bal Sagoth and do not wish to be reminded of it. Still, this is not a very BIG problem, but it's a small spot on the blazon of Bal-Sagoth. The music is still very good although somewhat less profound and well-thought out than their last CD (comparison is inevitable!). It's all pretty instantaneous as was "Starfire" but that one had more things to be revealed beneath the surface. There are some GREAT transitions in between different parts of a song here (just listen to "A Tale From The Deep Woods"), but these are only moments. There does not seem to be much innovation except in the longest song on this CD, the one about the gladiator. They actually incorporate circus music in this song and it sounds sickeningly pompous and happy, but reading the text along with it I learnt to appreciate it. This CD leans more on moments than on some message conveyed throughout the song or whole record even, and they seem to be using somewhat more conventional and transparent structures (like verse-chorus-verse-chorus). It is nicely polished and the sound is somewhat flat. The whole album is lighter and clearer than the moodier, darker and more epic fantasy-like "Starfire...". All in all this is highly enjoyable but I hope that Bal-Sagoth will not stray any further off the path... Still, lots of bands cannot pull this kind of stuff off. Epic fantasy metal taken to a pompous edge: be warned, or be enchanted.
© 1998 dwaallicht