Of the five other digipaks released by Unisound in unison with "Mesmerized by Darkness", the Diaboli disc is easily better than the Shadowcaster and Insatanity (which were, quite literally, utter shite), better than the Equinox ov the Gods (which was goofy), but bellow the Equinox (US) and Thou Art Lord releases (of course). In comparison to "Towards Damnation", this disc is somewhat of an undecided review on my part. It's nothing more than a typical Darkthrone influenced record, and really isn't even interesting. On the other hand, it's better than many bands going for this sort of black metal...ah fuck, Diaboli are shite basically.

"Mesmerized by Darkness", just like "Towards Damnation" can be lived without. Generic, typical...everyone knows what it sounds like. Borrowing more from Darkthrone in terms of production this time around than Burzum, but still sounding like Darkthrone, yet less worthy (again, of course). Some bands can do it, others fail miserable, and Diaboli are somewhere in between. They know how to sound like Darkthrone, but just can't come up with the riffs (or vocals...they typically stink) to worthy more than a listen or two.

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