The Horrors of Satan

Denial Of God, my first and maybe my favorite black metal band finally released it's first full lenght album called "The Horrors Of Satan" in 2006. I've waited for years to listen to their first LP and I have to say, that the quality of their music is always evolving . What we heared on the previous albums is a musical growth, the band always makes their music more intresting, complex and atmospheric, a good thing for every band who wants to separate themselves from the rest.

Like always, this new DoG release has tons of tremolo picked guitar riffs and fast blast beats, it has beautiful melodies, acoustic parts and keyboard sections. Most of the tracks tend to start with an acoustic intro and with a spooky whisper overlayed and I have to say that this technique gets overused, but still, it remains interesting and doesen't get boring. Songwriting was not a problem on this album for the guitarist "Azter", the riffs are fitting very well on the songs. The songs are long and diverse and they also have very atmospheric or almost thrashy parts sometimes. They tend to use two guitars, one playing a low rhythm, tremolo picked and one playing very high leads or solos that are mainly played on the B string of the 6th string of the standard tuned guitar Azter uses.

A cool thing that can be heared on this album is the bass that is not very present on the most black metal releases, but on "The Horrors Of Satan", "The Unknown" DoG bassist is using a distortion pedal sometimes and made some intresting interludes and maybe creepier than with a normal, clean, bass sound. The bass is almost playing the same thing the rhythm guitar is playing, but thats not a problem 'cause that's what the bass is "designed" to do on a black metal album.

Ustumallagams' voice is diversed on this album. He uses for example low growls, harsh growling, moans and so on but also whispers on some intros to create an interesting atmosphere. (listen to: The Witch- Now A Restless Spirit). Despite the diversity of the vocals, it's easy to figure out the lyrics. Covered topics include witches and lycantrophy, but also satanism and other demonic stuff. Otherwise the dynamics aren’t bad with pace changes occurring fairly frequently. The album also has some easily memorable choruses that will definetly stay in your head for days. (for example: Cycle of the Wolf)

Overall, the album is a good work of danish black metal band Denial Of God, recommended to every one of us who likes melodic parts in black metal songs and also for people who want to start listening to black metal and don't like raw bands like Gorgoroth or Emperor, yet. Just find the track "The Curse of the Witch" or "The Book of Oiufael" on youtube and let the horror of satan begin.

In 1994 Denial of God made the first song for the forthcoming album, The Horrors of Satan. The particular track, A Night in Transylvania, is still a part of the album when it was finally released 12 years later. During the years, Denial of God has released only some dozen of their own songs, in MCD- and 7”EP-formats. Despite the slow release and creation pace, The Horrors of Satan consists mainly of songs which were not released before. Well, excluding the single which was released shortly before the album. Two songs; The Witch – Now a Restless Spirit and The Curse of the Witch, have been released earlier but with different versions.

Denial of God has always called their music black horror metal, but only The Horrors of Satan do justice to this term properly. There are lots of horror atmosphere within the 56 minutes and nine songs. Earlier, shorter releases lacked these things quite badly. Especially the three short intros work well in this area. Also the longest track, 11 minute song The Iron Gibbet could be a good in creating atmosphere, but is simply too long and a bit dull, after all. Rest of the songs are simply excellent. The secret of quite long songs, from 6 to 13 minutes, is simple yet catchy riffs and compositions. Melodies and riffs remind both the heavy metal of the 80s, and black metal from the early 90s. Trademark of Denial of God has never been extraordinary skills or groundbreaking compositions. The Horrors of Satan shows, how simple pieces can be put together into solid and working piece of art.

One of the biggest surprises is the sound of the album. Clear sounds give boost especially to drum sounds, which work great. Also Azter’s guitar sound is excellent, and his brother, Ustumallagam, has the powerful vocal style like in earlier releases. The Horrors of Satan fulfils the long waiting of the Denial of God fans, and is absolutely great debut.