the Howling Wind-Of Babalon

The album opens after the powered gloom of the first couple chords going straight for the faster mcblaster. Tonally falling some where in between woe and tombs more straight forward attacks, black metal 101 with less demon shriek in the vocals and more of a gurgle to death grunt. This head on approach doesn't vary a snare beat until the fourth song scaling the walls, where there's a dramatic shift and the whole band takes on a groove, like a less proggy enslaved indulging their inside rock fetish. It's a welcome shift from the uniformity the album opened with and when they can no longer resist the urge to blast beat it, the guitars take a different approach.

The rest of the album abandons the formula, the mountain view drips into the beat like hot lava before they take off at their favorite speed. Still in the meat of this songs they could have stood to have used more sonic ambiance, the songs switches gears into a more punk rock feel and returns back to the blast . The effect at this point begins to wane. They are capable of handling this speed with relative ease and do not allowing their playing to become sloppy.

Abominations and filth stomps in with shades of thrash in the syncopation. The vocals stay in their one mode of rasp,leaving the guitar solo of sorts to pick up the slack, I gin to think perhaps what we are hearing here is something Martyrdod does better. Hints of altars of. Madness era morbid angel can be traced in the vocal patterns .

Choronzon fakes like its going in another direction than the verse really takes though I like the guitar in th chorus like section and the melodic single note passage following it. The effects on the vocals here on a needed deviation as well.the morbid angels of mercy return in the guitar solo making this one of the stronger songs.

Gateways not the Dimmu song but a slinky bass driven number that launches them back into Damian waters of Styx by the tie a chorus should arrive the hook being a melodic guitar line .this album worked best as back ground music at two in the morning, while the band claims thematically there is an occult slant to the lyrically content it doesn't matter because the vocals areal growled int he saw abrasive wash varied only in phrasing at times. The almost haunting chords ringing out as the end nears is too little too late to really balance the beating.

I will give this one a five as it took a good solid listen to realize they are really good at a style allowing for only a moderate level Of dynamics but never trip over their own feet when racing down hill at this speed. Overall the musicianship could stand to be more well rounded particularly in terms of melodic variation, though I know there is a market for low risk high threshold metal, so if melody isn't at the top of your list, you might dig these guys live I would watch them open up for some one ur would not seek them out as at high volume in a high setting it seems the songs might become hrd to differentiate even though they did begin to vary the attack midway through.