Ill-Natured Spiritual Invasion

I don't think the metal community quite understood Ill Natured Spiritual Invasion at the time of its release, and even now it doesn't get the mentions it deserves. Overlooked despite its excellent cover art, a 1.5 man black metal side-project, this is actually the best Old Man's Child album and shows what you can achieve by not overdoing things, and just getting the songs done and dusted, with wobbles and imperfections and all. The catchiness of the music can't be overestimated, and there's just enough of everything to sound vibrant but not like a wall of sound. The drums are rich and organic, and played by Gene Hoglan. You can expect a lot of funky tom fills, musical metal beats and bright, warm cymbal-work. The guitars are fast, melodic, imperfect, and so utterly perfect. The keyboards are just enough to add atmosphere and a strange Middle Ages wizardry. Ornamentation, not irritation.

Essentially, Ill Natured Spiritual Invasion is a black metal album made up out of melodeath and thrash stylings, but the lyrics are all whimsically Satanic, and the overall atmosphere is as black as night outside an early 00s city-centre metal club in wet November. It's dark, and fun, and musical, and broadly fast-paced, and is certainly Old Man's Child's razorblade-with-a-smile album. Galder, of Dimmu Borgir fame, plays nearly everything, and does all the vocals, but 40% of the album's sonic space is left over for Hoglan's drums, and there's that certain heaviness you get from a 3-piece band, present on Ill Natured Spiritual Invasion. If you wanted a Halloween album that's complex enough for metal fans but also whimsical enough to just about get by at a house party, Old Man's Child has something for you.

The sense of fun on Ill Natured Spiritual Invasion belies the darkness of the music, and the lyrics are very, and happily, locked in a certain black metal niche. It's all classic metal, and black metal tropes spat out with unselfconscious venom. All the songs are pinned back to the minimum they need to be catchy, and nothing here, note-wise, is wasted. The clarity and punch of the album itself is such that you'll be air drumming along almost immediately. Hoglan's toms are tuned very low and boomy, and the rest of his kit is given prominence in the mix. Never was there a more joyous and spontaneous black metal drum performance. You can hear the drums and the recording room, and it's like you're present at the recording. All the small wobbles and fluctuations are vibrant and humanised. Hoglan's blasts are musical, and the double bass patterns haven't been smoothed out artificially.

Fall of Man, God of Impiety, Demonaical Possession all feature effervescent riffs, repeated guitar melodies, tempo shifts, and effective keyboard ornamentation. There is no loss of groove in favour of pace, and every song has its own identity, and all the songs together fit perfectly in order on Ill Natured Spiritual Invasion. From the opening keyboard refrain on Towards Eternity, to the final track, Thy Servant, you just know this underappreciated Old Man's Child album will bounce along keeping the listener pegged between the dark atmosphere, and the fun, spontaneous musicianship. Thy Servant ends proceedings on Ill Natured Spiritual Invasion and was the song chosen for magazine cover CDs at the time, despite being oddly structured and quite proggy, and ending with a hyper Iron Maiden coda. It's bouncy, fast, melodic, and sounds as if someone added in some major key notes and a bit of late 70s funk drumming to Dissection. On Demoniacal Possession we hear,

Sweet is my vengeance for I can taste its blood
Blessed are my sins and all I with evil do,
Strong I will pray for the end of morrow day
I believe the devil and I will burn in hell

The only criticisms of Ill Natured Spiritual Invasion are that the bass usually follows the guitar lines somewhat linearly, as a thickening mechanism, and a second guitarist, again, might have filled the sound out a little. A two-piece band, playing like a three piece, coherent song structures, consistent lyrical themes, excellent cover art, a 40-odd minute album length, give it a play; it's a black metal album with a sense of fun, and shows you don't have to burn buildings or murder people to be the real deal. Essentially a side project to Dimmu Borgir, Ill Natured Spiritual Invasion ends up being a more serious black metal entity precisely by keeping a sense of humour, and self-awareness.

I put quotations in the title because Ill-Natured Spiritual Invasion isn't really a black metal album through anyone who actually knows the genre well, but people will still refer to this album as a black metal one for the same reasons they'll consider Covenant's Nexus Polaris to be black metal. For what it's worth, INSI is a solid effort by Old Man's Child and will greatly appeal to those who want to go deeper in the world of "black metal" past bands like Dimmu Borgir, Naglfar or Ancient, you know, the more mainstream ones.

To say it in just a few sentences, INSI is best described as catchy metal with competent vocals, above average riffs, and lots of keyboards to color the sound. Most of these tracks don't last more than five minutes but they don't need to. Many tracks have the standard verse, chorus, verse, chorus, solo/synth break, chorus, ending, but it makes the music a lot more simple and easier to enjoy without being too pretentious. Not all the songs follow this path either so there are some nice surprises.

Galder's vocals range from low, borderline death-metal style growls to higher shrieks. He does have sort of a signature sound in his voice, at least when you compare it to many bands in the scene. Keyboards aren't too invasive, but you can't avoid them, so if you generally don't like them being used, you won't like this album. They do give the album someone of a symphonic feel like on tracks Fall of Man, Captives of Humanity, and Towards Eternity. There is sort of an artificial sound to them, but they still coat the music well and mostly serve as background, making the keyboard elements far from pompous.

The real greatness in this album is the riffs...because the production isn't perfect, it makes the guitars have a distinct tone. These riffs are both memorable and catchy. Many songs even remind me of Tetris, that is, if you take some common Tetris themes, remix them with a metal approach, you might get something that would fit on INSI. Examples of this appear most in God of Impiety and My Evil Revelations...it just has that lively, jovial touch which makes most songs fun.

Speaking of Evil Revelations, that's a really cool song and sums up all the great aspects of this album. It's catchy as hell, the borderline death metal growls add a nice touch, and there's even a cool piano bit towards the end. Another cool sounding song is Thy Servant. I thought this album was the shit when I was 15 - the lyrics are simple but come off as badass. Even at age 23 I still find a lot of this entertaining. The lyrics are simple "I am THE ANTICHRIST...". Really shallow, cheesy, and cliche but the performance is excellent and that's what makes it shine.

Since the old days of my metal listening, INSI was definitely an awesome album and much of what's on here is still entertaining either today. I figure something like this is great for casual people who want to sample more extreme metal without going too deep into it. There is some filler here, but no track is really that weak or flawed. You may move on to more sophisticated and deeper metal in the future, but if you understand Ill-Natured Spiritual Invasion for what it is, I think it offers a lot to be pleased with.

Tired of the same old “melodic black metal” that’s been running though your ears for a decade now? Wanting something more technical, enslaving, well constructed? This is what you’re looking for! Information has reached me that tells of the haste this album was put together in. Supposedly, all music and lyrics was made kinda on-the-fly. This is very hard to believe, since it’s by far the most thought-through album they ever made. The progression the title refers to lies in both sound and song-writing. As the mixing always has (in my eyes at least) been a problem with this band, it’s good that they finally got it together, and while the song-writing on its predecessor had quite a few glitches, it all fits together here. Power is the key-word, and they deliver it.

“Towards Eternity” : the ultimate album opener, is the best track Old Man’s Child has ever composed. It features some of the best vocals I’ve e-v-e-r heard in terms of melodic black metal. It seems as if one dark growl and a high shriek mixed together always works out for the best. When a band has the ability to actually frighten you with a part of a song, it’s really something special. I’m referring to the verse in “Towards Eternity”. The guitar melody is so well figured out it actually gives one chills down the spine. This goes out through the whole song. The synth is also playing a big role here.
It’s almost disturbing. The melodies are in one way beautiful, on the other hand almost abysmal and very faulty from an artistic point of view. I don’t think there will be such melodies for us to hear ever again.

The pace usually restricts itself to mid-tempo, but on some occasions they go beyond that. “God of Impiety” is quite a fast song, but this track causes a big dilemma for me. Listen to the guitar melody. Isn’t that the same melody Stratovarius used for their famous song “Black Diamond”? Well, so what? It fits here. “My Evil Revelations” features nice drum-work and weird tempo overall, and reminds me a little of “Towards Eternity”. The point is that all fits together well in almost every song.

As said before, with this album Old Man’s Child took a huge step forward. Unfortunately it was also their last step forward. After this one, they kind of stood on the same spot for a long time. If they ever can surpass this, only time can tell…
Best tracks : Towards Eternity, Fall of Man, God of Impiety, My Evil Revelations

One could find it rather humorous, that of all the KVLT Black Metal bands that are brought into the spotlight, not many can amount to a two man ensemble consisting of Dimmu Borgir's Galder and SYL's Gene Hoglan. However, as this little album that is arguably the best Old Man's Child release excluding their latest (In Defiance of Existance), has quite an overwhelming feeling. To begin this album's description, It must be brought to attention that the production value of this CD is rather unfortunate, due to it's release being before Galder had any good connections to the likes of Fredrik Nordstrom. Therefore, the overall sound of this piece is not bad enough to ruin the album's affect, yet it does take away from the intensity that Ill-Natured Spiritual Invasion had the ability to deliver!

It is in this album alone where die-hard Galder fans and Dimmu/OMC fans alike have the chance to fully hear the extent of Galder's talents. Talents that span far from just Guitar. Galder has the divine musicianship to cover all intruments except Percussion, hence Hoglan's inclusion on INSI. Galder perfoms Guitar, Bass, Synth, and Vocals, and he couldn't have made a better choice. While the production value may be extremely translucent and thin, Galder's (overall) performance is strengthened by him developing his own ideas which allow them to flow together quite excellently.

There is one variation, however, whereas Galder seems to have a very thrashed influenced Guitar style, therefore, the only real Black Metal element in INSI, is the Synth, or Keyboard. the song "Captives of Humanity" best emphasizes this fact, a song that is perhaps arguably Pagan or Viking influenced. No matter, though, the song is very good.

yet another highlight would most definatley be the track "God of Empiety". This song is extremely enjoyable due to the second half of the song being almost entirly dedicated to Galder soloing on the Guitar. Something he rarely ever does, especially for that length!

While his Guitar styles may not be particularily Black Metal, the lyrics certainly are (which by the way were improvised). These are the typical Old Man's Child lyrics, however, less poetic because they were made up very quickly and not pre-rehearsed! For example:

"I believe the Devil, and I will burn in Hell"

These words were those of the chorus for "Demonical Possession", and there aren't too many more KVLT things to say than that. Also, as the lyrics are Black Metal solidly, the vocals are certainly not. Galder does not often use the standard Black Metal screech, which does not necessarily suggest that he can't, he just doesn't. Normally, he uses a quasi-Growling singing style that pleases many individuals who like Black Metal, but hate the screeching vocals that almost all BM bands use!

As for Hoglan, this may not be his best performance (which does not necessarily suggest that it is bad in any way), he is most assuredly the best Percussionist that Galder will ever have the gift of working with. Other than the obvious inclusion of Double Kick that is present in most (if not all) Old Man's Child albums, Hoglan's work in this case was solid, strong and brutal.

To summarize, INSI was an excellent example of Galder's many talents, despite the production value that still didn't ruin the album (at all in my opinion). Furthermore, the fact that there were only two musicians at all is rather jaw dropping due to the well rounded effect Old Man's Child maintained throughout their career and this album particularily. And excellent Black Metal purchase, it is recomended to all of you KVLT kiddies!

Old Man's Child is (at least nowadays) a solo project of one Thomas Andersen, also known as Galder. It belongs to the second wave of norwegian 'black' metal (i.e. Dimmu Borgir and the like). Two old members of Dimmu Borgir have played in Old Man's Child and Silenoz has made some lyrics for their older albums.

The main thing that attracted me to this album was the drummer, Gene Hoglan. I guess everyone of you who have read my Death reviews know that I consider Hoglan to be one hell of a drummer and he doesn't disappoint but 'Ill-Natured Spiritual Invasion' isn't his best performance. His beats aren't his most technical ones and he doesn't get to show his unbelievably fast doublebass beat (there are doublebass beats but none of them are top speed) but his fills are really impressive and the way he sometimes plays them during the actual beat is quite striking.

The songs are all quite similar with each other which is a symptom of the fact that the guitarlines aren't very memorable and can't hold the songs together without the aid of other instruments. There are a few thrashy riffs which work very well but they are too few and far between to carry the record. Galder's vocals are also very off-the-shelf black metal grunting and he doesn't even manage to sound raw or aggressive, just quite clinical. His performance on 'The Pagan Prosperity' (especially the roar in the beginning of 'The Millennium King') was much better. This is probably due to the fact that Galder just improvised the vocals while in the studio.

The keyboards really save some songs from being totally unmemorable like the first track, 'Towards Eternity', for example. The song is completely plain otherwise but the clever use of keyboards save it. Galder has used the keyboards wisely since in the leads he mostly uses the classic piano sound so the leads don't sound cheap. The rest of the keyboarding is pretty much the stuff you've heard in dozens of other records. It sounded cheap and uninteresting the first time around and doesn't sound any better this time.

I was really hyped up because of Gene Hoglan appearing on this album and I thought he wouldn't participate in any musical project which was poor but I guess I was wrong. Well, 'Ill-Natured Spiritual Invasion' isn't actually poor but too plain and unsurprising to stand out from the heaps of this kind of records. Some riffs do stand out but that's just not enough even with Hoglan's drumming.