Imperium Tenebrarum

Rossomahaar are perhaps one of the better-known Russian black metal bands out there, and from what I can gather they tend to have a ‘love-them-or-hate-them’ reputation. After listening to Imperium Teneb—sorry, Ιμπεριυμ Τενεβραρυμ—several times, I can’t really muster that level of emotion one way or the other about it. It’s… decent. It’s brutal; it’s raw. The drumming is very well-done, as is the singing, and the sound is very full and engaging. Sergei Lazar’s keyboard work is subtle and atmospheric in a ‘just-so’ way for this style of music, particularly with the vocal-synth effects. Yes, ‘The Spectral Prophecy’ is breathtaking in terms of quality and delivery, but the rest of the album left me feeling a bit… nonplussed. Execution is great, but the material when combined with the production doesn’t quite live up; Imperium Tenebrarum is pretty much just run-of-the-mill black metal, perhaps a handful of bpm faster than most of its dark brethren, with a mere handful of folk elements tossed in.

Don’t get me wrong – there are some killer riffs to be found here, and blast beats and trem-picking enough to sate the most diabolic of listeners. The songs are actually quite deftly-constructed: both ‘The Forlorn Existence…’ and ‘Into the Domain…’ both featuring a composition that by turns seductively draws you in and mercilessly mows you down. You can’t listen to ‘The Forlorn Existence…’ and not appreciate the haunting, vaguely creepy honky-tonk keyboard work. I keep coming back to that, because Lazar really does know how to provide atmosphere to his songs; the biggest problem I am hearing is that he keeps fighting the mixing and the production on the rest of the album.

Everything else is thrown by the raw mixing into sharp relief, so the keyboard work fares about as well as a delicate, finely-woven black gossamer fabric windblown into a field of rusty spikes. … Wait, actually, that image is pretty awesome. But speaking from a listener’s standpoint, one can certainly wish that Rossamahaar had either shown a little bit more restraint, or thrown all caution to the winds with an ‘aw, fuck it’. If you’re doing this kind of speedy, all-out black metal, the keyboard work is going to come off as just so much needless frippery. If you’re going for the more atmospheric side of things, you want to make sure that the guitars and bass are appropriately subdued. This is shown on tracks like ‘… Of Shadowy Exaltation…’ where the high points are those when the keyboard fades out of the picture altogether, or the early bars of ‘Imperium Tenebrarum’ where the guitars and bass take a sparse, controlled riff and allow for the keyboards and vocals to really seep through.

I’ve read other reviewers say that this album was too ‘random’, but actually I find I would have preferred a bit more randomness if it meant they could tease out these two extremes and make them work, rather than blending them together in a hodge-podge. (Actually, Regnum Somni does this beautifully. I’ll get to that review sooner or later, though.) What they probably meant by that, though, was their synth-heavy, blackened cover of ‘The Call of Ktulu’ (which they put lyrics to and rebranded as ‘Portals of Chaos…’). As far as covers go, it’s not a bad one, and it manages to do what I thought Rossamahaar ought to consider – allowing the guitars and bass to stand down slightly and let the keyboards and vocals do their thing. An interesting take, and it does manage to bring a fresh interpretation to ‘The Call of Ktulu’ rather than being Just Another Metallica Cover.

All in all, I’m middle of the road on Imperium Tenebrarum. Rossomahaar certainly don’t suck, but honestly, don’t set your hopes too high on this one. Listen to Regnum Somni for a better take on what they are capable of.

15 / 20