Dolentia : "Iniciação Eversiva"

Black metal is still one of my favorite sub genres of music , despite the slew of sub par bands coming out from every corner only able to hold down a blast beat, if they are able to do that. I think black metal not only covers a wider rang of emotion than say thrash or death metal, but gives the artists room to grow and experiment. It is sad that most do not take advantage of this. Not sure why I decided to check out this band from Portugal, perhaps I wanted to take a peek into the unknown and see if they might do something aside from blast beats. This is a yes and no. On the second song it sounds like they put more though into the song writing throw in some punchy thrashing grooves and syncopation, but they are not really running towards new ground. The guitar on this album sounds better than the lo-fi sound most bands try to get away trying to relive the early 90s.

Their songs are on the long side so even when they hit something coming close to epic it gets lost the cavalcade of riffs flying by you. Writing long songs can be like talking on cocaine for some bands. You can run your mouth with nothing to say. Where as a conversation with depth you don't realize how much time has passed. The first song that really strikes me as carrying a original direction is "Supremo Designio". They take a much more tried and true metal approach on the driving "Do fundo dos abismos" The drummer begins to earn his pay on this one as well. I tend not to mention metal drummer of this ilk because it kind of goes with out saying that they should be awesome to hold it down, but this guy add some creative accents and has command of his kit.

By the time we reach "A noite" this album is beginning to fade into the background until the song slows down and lets it breathe. Then the songwriting begins to improve on the last two songs, the riff take on an almost viking metal quality sometimes slowing down to throb. The closing song has more of a pagan metal feel, think Bathory here, but with the Lord of the Rings behind them. It seem they ride on this for the bulk of the song, adding a guitar melody but not giving it any where else to go dynamically. These guys do have potential there are glimpses at where they are making black metal in 2015 rather than pretending it's 94. I'll give it a 6.