Benighted Leams
Caliginoul Romantic Myth
[Supernal]


This is one of those discs that is simply "O.K", and won't add much to any persons collection (unless of course your a collector and require everything). BL seem to be a one-man band from London, England (although part of this CD was recorded in Finland), and play fairly straight-forward, melodic (at times romantic), and even sloppy black metal. Comparisons can be made to later Dimmu Borgir, earlier Ulver, and even Nastrond (mainly because of the distant and confusing riffs), but are less original (not that any of those bands are particularly *amazing*, especially DB) and interesting. The main thing here than prevents the music from a complete and total death is the nice distortion and riffs. Not that any of the riffs are particularly amazing, but they stay atmospheric and dirty enough to provide a sort of *distant* listen. The negative aspect of the whole thing (besides the drum machine, which goes too fast at times to be taken seriously) are the horrible vocals. Ranging from mindless grunts, weak sounding rasps, and all the way up to out of tune clean vocals, they practically kill the music, and make it most verily stale. Some of the music is nicely riffed as well, in, as mentioned before a very atmospheric fashion. It gives the CD a fairly romantic feel to it, and prevents it from being *too* bad of a CD. The one concept that has to be pointed out though are the lyrics. Done in Chaucerian middle english (!!!) they bring a much needed flair to the (wonderfully laid out and drawn) packaging, and create a sense or originality. Sadly, you'll have to understand a great deal of middle english to make out anything, and that's obviously not the easiest of tasks. Overall, a fairly boring (although somewhat original) release, 30 minutes long, wonderfully packaged, and costing no more than an mCD.


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