Infernal Battles

The debut of this now legendary black metal act, Deathspell Omega has certainly come a long way from this. In more recent years, they have made some of the most haunting, challenging black metal ever made. Even on their second record 'Inquisitors Of Satan', Deathspell was playing an old school brand of black metal with some considerable proficiency. 'Infernal Battles' opens the band's career on a somewhat bleak note, and I do not mean that in a good way. Although nothing out of the ordinary for straightforward black metal, this is a very amateurish, poor sounding release, with inconsistent production, performance, and unremarkable songwriting. Although it certainly has its merits to it still, this is the only album in Deathspell Omega's catalog that I might label as 'bad'.

Musically speaking, 'Infernal Battles' is fairly average black metal, in the vein of bands like Mayhem. Of course, Deathspell Omega is coming a clean decade after those Norwegian heavyweights, so I cannot say much of the band in terms of innovation at this point. The music is filled with evil sounding chord progressions, tinny drums, and raspy vocals that sound garbled as hell, thanks to the low budget recording that the album has. Making the production worse is the fact that tracks 5-8 are actually the band's demo, 'Disciples Of The Ultimate Void'. Not a re-recording for the album, but an outright copy-and-paste of the demo onto here. The songwriting- which is very decent, although predictable- does not compensate for the total lack of tact the album has. Even at its best, 'Infernal Battles' still sounds like a garage production, but hearing it fluctuate so much makes for a pretty weak experience..

One positive thing I can mention about Deathspell Omega at this point is that even early on, they were very good musicians. This is an inherently untechnical sort of music that the band is playing, but they play it with a great intensity, and unlike many demos of this style that I have heard, there aren't slip-ups in the playing. Although this may be considered a full- length, it really does not feel as if Deathspell Omega's legitimate journey starts until the second album. This is generic, mediocre black metal with abysmal production values. Even so, it's a somewhat worthy venture for hardcore fans of the band, if only to see how much the band has progressed since their origin.

Back in 2000, when this album was first recorded, not many people knew much, if anything about Deathspell Omega. They had already released one demo but apart from that, they were pretty much unheard of. There were people who actually took a gamble with this and picked this CD up, probably drawn in by their cool name and equally cool logo. However, in the words of Bart Simpson this album is "powerfully uncool."

When I first listened to this, it sounded a lot like everything was just all mashed together in terms of sound. This CD is in my top five for: "worst production". It really sounds like these guys decided to record this album on a 20 year old tape recorder (and a shitty tape recorder at that). To make matters worse, it sounds like the vocalist is in a different room to the rest of the band and he's screaming the lyrics through a walkie talkie down a microphone. Yep, it really does sound like that.

Apart from the bad production when I first the album it sounded a lot like this: ultra distorted guitars, distorted drums going WHAM WHAM WHAM BANG CRASH BANG and the walkie talkie vocals going ARRR ARRRRR ARRRRRR ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!! It wasn't really until my 5th listen that I was able to get through all the sound and distortion and actually listen to and appreciate the music.

It really wasn't that bad. I could actually begin to make out some words, riffs and see that the drums actually had some talent to them, rather than the guy just slamming down on them. It wasn't all that bad really, almost good. The riffs were cool and are catchy and they change around a lot. I could almost headbang to them, but it’s hard to headbang to when you've got such utterly fucked production. However to appreciate anything in this album means you'll have to listen to this album about 5 times. This means you to endure over 2 hours of what I described in the paragraph above. So in the end, is it really worth it? The answer is no.

I suggest anyone who likes black metal to get SMRC. It's a lot longer (so it’s worth more for your dollar) the album kicks ass and the production is worlds apart from this. These guys have talent and ideas but it really isn't worth it on this one.

Despite what some would have you believe, an album that sounds like it was recorded in a toilet through a walkie talkie is not automatically a classic. There has to be at least some substance to the music to make a good record. Whether that substance comes into being through good songwriting or creating atmosphere or anything else, you simply do not have a good record without it.

To get straight to the point, I'd rather jump off a tall building than listen to this album from start to finish. It has a few moments where you get a glimpse of what Deathspell Omega would become, but they are few and far between. It's simply not worth the effort to wade through the sea of noise to find them.

The production would make Nocturno Culto cringe in agony. Yes, it's that bad. To be fair, I'm not opposed to this kind of recording. I enjoy early Darkthrone and even a few of their clones, but this is utterly horrible.

I won't even bother to differentiate between the 'album' portion of this record and the 'demo' portion because they are both equally horrible.

If the point of this album was to inflict inhuman torture on the listener, then I suppose this record could be considered a success. Otherwise, it fails in every aspect.

The good news is that they made leaps and bounds between this recording and their next few releases. I would even go so far as to say that they revolutionized black metal with Si Monumentum Requires Circumspice. This, however, is an entirely different beast and should be avoided.

Start with any of the early splits or Inquisitors of Satan if you like raw black metal. Si Monumentum... and everything after are required listening for ANY fan of extreme metal.

Avoid this one unless you're looking for a headache, but there are more pleasant ways to get a headache.

After the split-up of Hirilorn two members from the band, Hasjarl and Shaxul, decided to start another band called Deathspell Omega. Hirilorn recorded some fresh and original sounding music. Although it didn’t knock your socks off it was still a decent listen and maybe with a bit of development they could have released some truly great music. Deathspell Omega’s “Infernal Battles” on the other hand blends in nicely with all the unoriginal marketable Black Metal of today’s terribly unexciting scene.

Production is raw. Guitars are heavily distorted. Drums are heavily distorted. Vocals are heavily distorted. Bass is probably heavily distorted buts it’s too low in the mix to even notice. Nothing about the production is special. The production gets worse on the second half of the album because it’s taken from their demo yet it still manages to fit together with the first half. It’s the kind of production you heard when Darkthrone started making music.

Remember Darkthrone? Of course you do because every 1 in 2 Black Metal albums released today sound like Darkthrone and this is one of the ones that sounds like Darkthrone. Actually the opening riff instantly reminds you of “Transylvanian Hunger”. Then the next riff sounds like old school Black Metal, think Celtic Frost. Then it’s back to Darkthrone riffs. The opening riff to “The Ancient Presence Revealed” sounds like straight up Thrash. The second half of this album that is their demo material is actually more fun to listen to then the first half, mainly because it has more variation and Thrashy parts.

“Infernal Battles” is a mix of mediocre Old School Black Metal riffs, Nu School Black Metal riffs and Thrash riffs. There’s no denying these guys can play their instruments and there’s no denying these guys can write music but all those skills are nothing when you lack creativity. Steer clear of this release.

Deathspell Omega is a great French Occult Black Metal Band dating back from the end of the 90's that released this album (Infernal Battles) in 2000.

Well, here we have a masterpiece, no doubts, imagine the typical 80's Black Metal kind of sound (Celtic Frost, Hellhammer, Bathory, and so on...) then, add some rawer, melancholic parts in the 90's vein (Judas Iscariot, Mutiilation, Darkthrone, and so on...), and you've got a good idea of what this album sounds like.

The recording, however, isn't very good, and sometimes the sound turns into a "harsh-mass-of-sound." That's why it lost the 6 points, but it's nothing that's really harmful, you can usually understand well the riffs, the drumming is ok, the vocals are pretty fine (they are in the 90's raw black metal way), but, forget the bass (you really can't hear it).

A highly-recommended album for Raw Black Metal fans, in all of it ways (80's/90's), but if you're looking for cleanly recorded and technical black metal, STAY AWAY FROM THIS ALBUM!