Lunar Chalice : "Trascendentia: The Shadow Pilgrimage

 

Sometimes I click on random black metal promos in my in-box and hope for the best. This German band is on Iron Bonehead, a record label with a better track record than most. Yes, things do get dark and creepy, but there is a great deal of your typical blasty nastiness as well. Clean vocals that sound like a monk chanting in the distance pop up at some point. They are even more distant on the second song which is even faster and meaner with it's blasting thus causing them to sound more like everyone else who does this sort of thing.  When it does slow so you can discern the nuance in the guitar what they are doing is pretty decent. For black metal this is well produced. I can say they better switch things up by the next song or I am going to get bored. 

They break things up with some haunted house level ambiance, but I find myself  at the same point I get with most extreme metal bands when I am dulled by the sonic intensity as say "But can you write a fucking song?" The answer is not directly forthcoming. The snarl of the vocals might be more deliberate, but the are just racing forward at a blinding speed with little to hook me in.  Four minutes it slows into something that solves this problem, though the rule around here is 'cool riffs alone does not a good song make" In other words almost too little too late. Things slow down into more of a throb for "Astral Stargate" . This works for a time and finds them moving in better direction but then things speed back up into the typical blasting. 

The devil spanking song, pretty much blasts ahead like all the others. I thought it would be darker and dirtier, to set the mood.  I already had a spoiler alert from the promo that let me know they were going for more of a neo folk thing on the last song. They captured some pretty cool sounds for this. It does not turn them into Death in June, as the vocals snarl over the strum of the guitar.  This works for what it is I think hearing some of this stuff worked into their black metal sound would have been cool, as it stand I will give this album a 8.5, if you are looking for some great black that does things different yet still the same then these guys are worth your time they know how to create a mood better than most.This album comes out June first on Iron Bonehead.  

Iron BoneHead Productions · Lunar Chalice - Calix Cum Velum