Inquisition : "Bloodshed across the Empyrean Altar beyond the Celestial Zenith "

The way Dagon lets the chords ring out with such eerie dissonance you know who this is right from the throttling descent into "From Chaos They Came". Drummer Incubus brings some sinister grooves and really lays into his high hat. Vocally...well it is what it is. The croaked vocals sound a little more relaxed on the opener while everything else is amped up. "Wings of Anu" feels like it carries a similar vibe to its throb as the opener, though perhaps dialed back a few degrees. The riff for the bridge coming out of the chorus is pretty badass. Lyrically I catch something about a planet of reptiles. The beginning of the third song finds them getting much more melodic only to build a false sense of security to be run over by another bleak bull-dozing attack.  The blast beats hit you in quick outbursts. They throw in the melodic intervals just as fast between the outbursts of frenzied snare.

The chug to "A Black Aeon Shall Cleanse" slows down to gain power. This brings them relatively closer to a more mainstream metal sound aside from the deadpan croak of Dagon's narrative. The slithering riff brings subtle time changes as the deliberate pacing of this song proves to be very effective. There is more of a black metal-like tremolo to "The Flames of Infinite Blackness".  The guitar melody on this song is a sign of growth for the band. Five songs in I already feel this is some of the band's best work to date. Though I can see how some of the band's cvlt following might be ready to lament over them selling out or evolving too far away from their earlier work.  It feels like this is a very natural progression. There is a more aggressive blasting to "Mystical Blood" though the guitar does come back with some melodic qualities.

I have heard Satan being muttered about throughout the album, but his infernal majesty is addressed directly in " Through the Divine Spirit of Satan". The vocals work more in conjunction with the guitars than we have heard previously on this album. The verse riff is almost catchy. A rare guitar solo also surfaces here. This is also followed by a clean guitar tone, so the dynamic range of what these guys do shows a lot of growth on this album. "Bloodshed Across the Empyrean Altar" shows they can grow without sacrificing the magnitude of their heaviness. There is a more deliberate classic metal drum beat to this song, that a certain portion of their fan base who is blast beats or bust might be resistant to but fuck em they are idiots anyway.  Inquisition holds off until almost three minutes into the song to converge into something resembling a conventional song. The song pretty fucking crazy guitar tones are summoned on this song.

There is a big metal guitar crunch that kicks off "Power From the Center of the Cosmic". This song has a much more straightforward attack. Two and a half minutes in it really builds into a solid groove. They fire into a more standard black metal speed for " A Magnificent Crypt of Stars". At this point it is clear that the guitar is the focal point of the album, even though there is some solid drumming on it. I'll round this album up to a 10 as I was pretty impressed and it strikes me as some of their best work to date.