This is an Italian three-piece black metal band who write all of their lyrics in Latin and have the silliest band photos we have seen in a while anywhere west of the ”eastern block”.

Despite initial impressions, this demo was worth getting accommodated with. They use plenty of keyboards, but not so much as to be named with the insulting ”symphonic” tag, rather with the a-bit-insulting ”atmospheric” tag. Mostly the synths serve as introducing the theme of the next part of the song and as interludes. There are two songs on the demo, both lengthy. The nice flow of these songs, which manages to eliminate a feeling of tedious unconstructed travel through black metal cliches, is also aided by samples such as horses’ hooves. Original, eh? Talk about coherence!

So, now we have stupid band photos, latin lyrics, ”atmospheric black metal” and horses. What’s the point?

I have no idea. But it’s not forced. It’s trying to be ”artistic”, that much is clear, but I wouldn’t call it forced. They are not too stuck up in conventional ideas… their problem might be that they have been listening to too much Emperor instead of Ildjarn!

They use a drum machine. It works all right and does not contradict the mood of the keyboards, since the melody lines are rather ”medieval” than ”symphonic-romantic”. Vocals are mostly wild avian-like screams of In the Woods/Helheim/some Burzum, but there are effective moments with clean vocals and low doomy growls.

New-wave, but not sold-out (yet).

© 1999 black hate