I was at first leery about picking this up, because some of the descriptions I had read made it sound like a Shrapnel guitarist attempting to do black metal. Well, I guess there's some truth to that, but its not as vapid as I thought. The riffs are well-written and sound nothing like what a sappy guitar wanker would do. Main rhythmic ideas incorporate traditional heavy metal, black metal and, for short moments, Pestilence-ish death metal (Spheres). There are solos but they go with music well and aren't super flashy. During the solos, the music takes on a power metal feel. The rhythm playing is a bit plodding, the player seems to be hitting the strings too hard for trem picked melodies and it makes it sound choppy instead of smooth like Abigor or Setherial. The overall feeling isn't very misanthropic - melancholic for sure, but probably not black enough for most black metal warriors - skating the line between Tristania and Stormblast-era Dimmu Borgir. Keys are present, but are used only to fill in the sound. This is a decent disc and I'm glad a most-helpful Hessian sent it to me. A good disc to check out, but beware if you only dig necro black metal.

© 2000 j. mcintyre