Life?

Is this black metal? Is this even the same band as on "Blood, Monsters, Darkness?" Is this good? Well, it's that at least. Not great but pretty good. But, unlike what Egregius mentioned, the difference between this and GLOOMY GRIM's first album is just astonishingly huge and I like this WAY more. So it earns a few points for showing growth.

The first album, it's true, has an undeniable charm in it's naivete and over-the-top anti-Christianity. But really, when you get right down to it, that album kind of sucks. The four best songs are available on the band's website as their first demo, and they sound much better as demos. And most of the rest is either watery black metal, or sub-par riffing-keyboard metal, or weird gothic soundtrack stuff with Whisper Lilith's irritating vocals. Though it sucks to see women leave the metal scene, her absence on this sophomore effort is very welcome.

But this album has presence, not just appreciated absences. Mostly presence in the form of some nice fucking big riffs. Just listen to "Mistress of the Stormblast" (which isn't even particularly great) and tell me that that main riff isn't way huger than anything on the band's debut. The guitarists, especially, have way more to say than before.....It sounds like they took an intensive death-metal seminar course for the two years between albums and it really pays off, especially on the slow part of "Revelation 666" and all of "Born in Fire." The production also gives them more crunchy emphasis on this album and I'm thankful for it. Whisper's background vocals have been replaced by war chants - "Hail!" "Blood!" etc. - by the rest of the band and these work extremely well in their scarcity.

And Agathon's keyboards - the real focus of the band - are very good here, definitely integrated and essential. His use of sounds is varied and there's barely any all-keyboard wank parts like on the first album. I don't really mind all-keyboard black metal (Elffor and Summoning rule completely), but Agathon can't pull off the epic atmospheric shit very well and he seems more in tune with the guitarists' efforts....he basically writes keyboard riffs that are well-complemented by fucking METAL. His drum programming stands out particularly on "Life?" too; lots of really good, really different digital beats that sometimes make me laugh. But in a good way.

And if you're still looking for poorly-translated, anti-Christian lyrics, this album has lots. Just check out lines like, "We do our prays towards to Him" and stop yourself from smiling.

The album as a whole has some crummy tracks near the end, "At the Gates" in particular just blows. But it always keeps my attention when it's pounding and it always puts me in a good mood. I don't play it often but still pretty regularly. I wish I could mention another band's sound in this review, but honestly, I just don't have a reference point for this band, at least within the black metal I know....maybe imagine the shitty keyboard parts of "Altars of Madness" stretched into a whole album where you don't mind it because it's not in the middle of an otherwise killer Morbid Angel song. It's apparent that they're kind of wimpy nerdy weirdos, but they're unique and often rock solid and that does it for me.

Having expected an improvement on, or at least something comparable to the last album, this became somewhat of a dissapointment.

In spite of having bumped 'Whisper', the female vocalist on the last album, probably so that she could get singing-lessons, the formula remains mostly the same. Guitars stomping in the best pseudo-black metal tradition, backed by a pounding yet varied and well-timed drumcomputer, together with profaning grim vocals in a sauce of two keyboard lines overlaid on eachother.

What makes this album lose 19 points compared to my review of their debut, is a combination of factors. First, I actually ended up missing the female vocals. They weren't great, but somehow, they were an essential ingredient in the standard pseudo black metal formula, sampled into the synths or not. Second, missing one element, the band apparently decided to give extra emphasis to what could be called the best element of their first album: the keyboards. But like with Nightwish's Wishmaster, giving extra emphasis to the most interesting element actually makes the music less interesting, and makes this album a step back from the previous one. Another thing is that the over-the-top blasphemy has lost it's charm. Now they're just a bit silly. Add to that the fact they aren't covering any ground they hadn't already covered on the first album, and the lack of any production surprises, and you end up with an album that's pretty ok, but dissapointing and lacking in the end.