This album came out in September and has been hyped ever since, so does it live up to the hype? This Colorado Springs band features member who have played with the whos of who of black metal. They are alumni of bands such as Demonacy, Kult ov Azazel, Sargeist, Enthroned, Lvcifyre, Corpus Christi and Necrosadist.The opening song hits you like a blur of fiends scowling and blast beats with a eerie melody way in the background. The vocals have a wide range of croaks and growl and the music does hold a sense of dramatics but black metal isn't being re-defined. These guys are very dark which is the first thing I respect about them.
They blast "Lantern of Eden's Night" by you at an ungodly speed, which I suppose is what a black metal band should do. They do have a big almost symphonic sound like old Dimmu, without all the strings, but it carries a similar bombast. I appreciate more as it slows into more of a triumphant procession. The vocals on more a scathing mid range scream. The lyrics are intelligible enough to understand when they say Lucifer . There is a jarring transition midway though , but the fact the maintain a similar velocity glosses this over. They continue on at the same pace, songs' like "Things That Are Naught" continues along a very "Stormblast"path. it might be darker and creepier, though less ambitious in some ways. "Things That Are Naught" is also the first song that really connected with me. By the time however it gets to the more deliberate pacing of "I am the Gateway" the blast beats are numbing me out.
Midway into the album it turns into the soundtrack to an exorcist movie. The sounds of the haunted ritual leak over into "Where Fire Never Dreamt of Man". An Emperor like carnival feel is draped over this song. the blast section is a wall of white noise with no real way to tell which i is up until it slows down. With a little more restraint I think these guys could write some pretty good songs. They continue to march on with the majestic murkiness of their blast beats. It pretty much smears "the Witchfires of Tubal Qayin" across your ears like a wet willie. Three and a half minutes in there is a redeeming melody.
After the long drawn out intro it will take more than a clever title to make"Salvation is the Son of Leviathan" a good song. A synth drone and gurgle whispers, make this more of a filler interlude than an actual song. They close the album with the twelve plus minute opus " the Otherness of Being". It is a swathe of white noise with a guttural narrative rambling over it for the first three minutes before the real song kicks in. The feral demon screams rant and rave over the blasty mcnasty flowing like wine. The double bass drumming thundering over the guitar riff makes it a little more interesting than some of their attempts to do similar as it finds more sonic power in the way it is syncopated. The song does eventually race off and leave this behind. When it slows a hair the vocals have something better to howl over. This song ends up ending the album on a much higher note than expected.
This guys are really into what they are doing despite the hype there is not a hipster thing going on here. They do capture some good sounds and I like where they are coming from, the album just relies on much on blast beats and could use more focus in song writing. I'll round it up to a 7.5.
5
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