Lux Occulta
Forever Alone Immortal
[Pagan]


What more could be said about this album than "perfect"?. I'm quite serious when I say this, since even though not the greatest album, "Forever Alone Immortal" is such a wonderfully polished and tasteful disc that it can be considered nothing less than that. Containing influence ranging from death metal, doom metal, black metal, and even classical, this group of six nicely trained musicians give us a CD that is *definitely* worth purchasing for any metal lover's collection. The opening track "The Kingdom is Mine" (the opening 10 seconds are worth the money I paid for this LP period) contains a near-godly double bass drum section mixed with a highly motivated keyboard/guitar riff. The song continues from there on into more sombre sounding territory, yet unlike some bands, doesn't ruin itself by boring the listener. Naturally, after listening to the first track, one thinks to themselves "Wow, the production here is really quite excellent". And it is. All the instruments can be heard perfectly, but not so perfectly that the music ends up sounding robotic (rather it flows together at an excellent rate). Jumping to track two, were treated to an atmospheric guitar section, and then are tossed into a thick sounding double guitar trade off. Vocals add nicely to the mix as well, since they jump from higher pitched screaming to deeper death grunts. Melancholic, beautiful, and truly superior to many other groups out there, the entire disc flows from one song to the other like nothing else. Worth actually *purchasing*, not just for the fine music, excellent packaging and generous running time (almost 60 minutes long!, but also for the simple fact that this has replay value, and will most likely stand the tests of time for any collector (or simple metal lover).


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