Lychgate: "An Antidote For the Glass Pill"

I often complain that I don't like the same old blasting black metal bands pump out, so what about when they begin to abandon the concept of conventional blasting  and they take a sharp turn into something different? That is what we are looking at with the second British black metal super group that boasts members from Esoteric, Macabre Omen, and Ancient Ascendant, are back with a second album. It starts of much different from the first album with enough dramatic build from the keyboards to sound like something from a King Diamond album....thinking "Conspiracy", though that might also be an Emperor influence creeping in.  The first real song after the long winded intro, finds the drums hesitate to come in as they creep into the song rather than blast into it ...which I can respect. The first hint of a blast is under a weird synth like melody. Given the guitarist from Esoteric plays with these guys it makes sense that they would slow things down. It is so weird that I assume to like since I am not sure what to think of it. It's dark and has an odd malignant creepiness to it.

With a title like "I Am Contempt" you ready your self for some angry blasting. There is more than the first song. They hold on it for the first minute, before some shredded licks trickle over everything. The more conventional black metal sound gnashes it's teeth at the weirdness mocking it. Weirdness is not to suggest that that is something going on here that isn't metal. This album is very metal. The songs are not ten minutes, but very concise cramming many sounds and movements into compositions in the five minute range.  The King Diamond keyboards return for "A Principle On Seclusion". It broods under the odd time signatures, hiding in the shadows as the demons whisper. By the end of the song it begins to run together with some of the other songs sonically.

They jerk you back and forth on the syncopation to certain sections of "Letter XIX", going into a blasty section around the four minute mark. At this point they are heading into crazy Sight territory and are now full blown prog metal. "Deus Te Videt" find the vocals going into an almost sung chant, before actually singing does come in which is very Emperor in its execution. Then they blast off like most black metal bands would, six songs in shows admirable restraint. The song ends abruptly before going into " An Illness Call Imagination" finds the vocals going into a more tortured black metal scream and the drummer embracing his more black metal side while the guitar takes a more angular route to offset this. The singing returns well. The growled vocals dip down lower for "An Acousmatic Guardian", that has more of a lumbering pound to it. The keyboardist is no joke , the song breaks down into a piano part which runs trills around the synth heavy build up.

It ends with the shred fest "My Fate to Burn Forever". On the song before The keyboardist show there chops and still served the song , here when it is shredding for the sake of masturbatory sacrament it can reach excess. It's hard to argue with results. They might have taken a different direction than where they were headed on the first album, but they are good at it so I will give this album a 9.