I'm into sword & sorcery/ fantasy themes like Conan, Red Sonja, Beastmaster, Xena, Excalibur, and history like the Dark Ages, Babylon, Sumeria, Atlantis, Lemuria, Mu, etc., so listening to Bal-Sagoth is only natural for me.

At times, the "awe"-ish apocalyptic keyboards swoop down, overpowering the heavy guitars, but it works. This album feels like a movie or story with scene changes. The lulls/ spoken word passages (which I don't think have been used much since Venom's At War..LP) lead into brutal death/black metal mania, with split second fades into psychotic parts.

Take the epic, fantasy atmosphere of Hawkwind and a Conan movie, with the brutality of a slightly slower Morbid Angel. Calling this black thrash metal is appropriate. As for their other albums, I plan to get them, even if they are more like soundtracks, as opposed to their lengthier intermittent moments of cool riffing, doom metal stomps, Maiden-ish solos, and quick thunder bursts of speed and controlled insanity.

Definitely not for everyone (but I think any metalhead without it is missing something very cool).

Hatheg Kla
Dreaming of Atlantean Spires
Spellcraft and Moonfire (Beyond the Citadel of Frosts)
A Black Moon Broods Over Lemuria
Enthroned in the Temple of the Serpents Rings
Shadows 'neath the Black Pyramid
Witch-Storm
The Ravening
Into the Silent Chambers of the Sapphirean Throne (Sagas from the Antediluvian Scrolls)
Valley of Silent Paths

© 2000 mlotek