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Black Hole > Land of Mystery > Reviews
Black Hole - Land of Mystery

Italian Horror in All its Campy Glory - 84%

thomash, April 8th, 2010

Black Hole is a metal band that owes quite a bit to their country’s horror tradition. Indeed, Land of Mystery sounds like a film soundtrack: the band uses a lot of repetitive, hypnotic, unobtrusive riffs and melodies as well as the classic, 70s-Italian-horror synth. So, the question then becomes: What kind of Italian horror are we talking about? The gothic-horror ambience is reminiscent of early Mario Bava, complete with homages to Hammer horror. But that’s not all the album has to offer: the primitive sound seems comparable to Fulci’s cinematic style and several songs verge into Goblin worship.

The strong point of the album, then, is definitely its lead guitar and keyboard melodies, which are very effective in evoking charmingly corny horror movie soundtracks. The riffs really just fill out the sonic texture, playing second fiddle to the Paul Chain-esque leads. This formula can work quite effectively, particularly on “All My Evil,” but it also makes for some very strange songwriting. The transition between the many ambient or keyboard/organ interludes and metal riffs is obviously a bit difficult. At their best, though, Black Hole are masters of making their song intros absolutely essential to the song, something that many metal bands could learn from.

The problem the band faces in this regard is that they’re effectively trying to fit the progressive, ambient feel of a Goblin film soundtrack into distinct songs written in a traditional metal structure. As a result, some of their songs give way to repetition, particularly early in the album with the song “Demoniac City.” Then again, that song fails because they didn’t have a good riff in the first place. (Those three chords don’t make for compelling horror no matter what you play them on.) As the album progresses, it seems the band allowed themselves a bit more freedom in their compositions, as is evidenced by the longer songs. This is much more effective since this band isn’t really about rocking your socks off so much as it’s about guiding you through the dungeons of classic horror in a manner so jazzy and laid-back that they should be required to wear sunglasses.

As for the musicianship, there’s nothing particularly remarkable aside from the aforementioned leads, which are refreshingly unique within the genre of metal. All the instruments are played very competently, although they don’t get very many opportunities to show off. The songs do build to a couple of well-executed proggy guitar solos, though. The bass does have a couple of fun bass licks, such as the one on “All My Evil.” Hell, there are about two minutes of “Land of Mystery which are carried almost entirely by the bass riff. The drums, though, are given short shrift in a move that takes us back to Hammer horror and earlier – Black Hole haven’t really picked up on Goblin’s innovative use of percussion in their horror soundtracks.

Generally, everything works out fairly well and the listener would be rushing to the costume store to prepare for Halloween if it weren’t for a couple of flaws on the album. For one thing, the production leaves a whole lot of space unfilled, but that really shouldn’t deter anyone who’s interested in 80s metal or Italian horror. Indeed, I get the feeling that it’s intended to create a sense of space and I will readily grant that this album sounds as though it were recorded in a castle. (One that looks exactly like the set of Bela Lugosi’s Dracula.) The production is really quite tolerable with the exception of the drums, which sound as though the drummer is playing on his five-year-old brother’s kit. That might actually be the case, though, which would just make this album more awesome.

The bigger problem is the vocalist, who gives a very uneven performance on the album. Leaving aside his endearing accent, he just does not have a good voice and obviously lacks vocal training and range. He nearly ruins the title track with his hilarious chorus of his horribly cracking highs and unbelievably awkward pronunciation. Paradoxically, though, he’s generally very charismatic. He sounds like a very friendly foreign exchange student or, well, the lead in an Italian horror movie. Sure, he’s awkward and ridiculous but I can’t help but find myself waiting for him to come back whenever the band decides to go instrumental for a couple minutes.

But this just means that this album falls into the category of Italian horror that has certain strengths or good ideas, but falls flat in certain things like pacing or execution. Indeed, that’s almost exactly what I would say about a film like Lucio Fulci’s Zombie. On the other hand, though, I think that Land of Mystery has the advantage of being primarily concerned with atmosphere: in a way, many of its flaws help it develop an atmosphere – specifically, the atmosphere of Italian horror. It’s difficult to explain the unique feel or charm of an Italian horror movie to someone who is unfamiliar with the genre and, likewise, I suspect that Land of Mystery is the type of album that underground metal/horror movie enthusiasts love and everyone else will never fully appreciate. It has some notable failings but, for the sake of its campy charisma and for being a unique, clever album, I wouldn’t part with it for the world.

FUCK ME, FUCK ME, FUCK ME, FUCK ME, FUCK ME!!! - 100%

Sigillum_Dei_Ameth, October 26th, 2009

I usually don‘t scream “FUCK ME!!!” but in certain cases there are albums that do cause me to act like an obnoxious 12 year old. One of those albums is Black Hole’s “Land of Mystery”, an album which if you looked in the dictionary it would be under words such as “cult”, “dark”, “obscure”, “cool”, and “hypnotic”. As I am reviewing this album I am also listening to the album for the first time and all I can say is this;

Wow.

I am not worthy to listen to such amazingly beautiful dark music. Wait, I don't care because this is music that just mesmerizes me to the point of total euphoria.

Black Hole were a gifted trio of musicians from Italy that play Doom Metal with a monster emphasis on soul-destroying atmosphere. The atmosphere is a complete throwback to just everything that was cool in the late 70's/early 80's. Dungeons and dragons, horror movies, castles, cheesy stage costumes, smoke machines, skulls....all preserved in their grainy celluloid images for nerds like me to blow my load over in some weird mid-20's nostalgia crisis that has permitted me to be a case of arrested development gone awry. For one this atmosphere is enhanced by synths that are complete Goblin-worship. Quick history lesson: Goblin were a group of amazingly talented progressive rock musicians who were famous for their music used as horror movie soundtracks, more specifically Italian gore/zombie flicks such as Dawn of The Dead, Susperia, Buoi Omega, Zombi, etc. Black Hole using their desolate-sounding Doom Metal combine the unholy synths that can only be described as both enthralling, spooky, kooky, and just flat-out cool. Cool is the only thing I can describe their sound really. The artwork in particular is crudely drawn in av very childish and almost folk-like. I know I have seen painting murals on the side of old building in Cuba, Mexico, New Orleans, etc where they honor and fear their dead in a supernatural way the looks exactly like that.

Vocalist/Bassist/Synth player Robert Measles(I guess it's better than the Mumps! Yuk, yuk, yuk!) is the sole stand-out musician of the trio. His vocals sound like the desperate ghost of Ozzy Osbourne that is forever roaming the ruins of a dilapidated gothic cathedral in the desperate search for a grave that might bring his spirit to rest, but cannot find it. Very haunting delivery. His incorporation of Goblin like-synths, and church organs and dark psychedelic sound effects are nothing short of genius. Guitarist Nicholas Murray....fuck me. Why he wasn't put on the top of the best guitar players of Doom Metal is beyond me. From the melodic riffs to the heavy Black Sabbath riffs, to even some pretty fast mid-tempo almost proto-Thrash parts, this guy knows what the hell he is doing. Him combined with Drummer Luther Gordon provides the black monolithic, smokey backdrop to Robert Measles somber wails of terror.

The sound production is warm. Warm in the way that you can find yourself feeling completely comfortable and totally dive into the pool of such a retro-sounding European production. In every way the sound production seals off the music itself and is perfectly frozen in time and completely captures everything perfectly from the vocals, drums, guitars, synths, everything. It's the closest sound you're going to get as when you first listened to your parent's or older brother's Black Sabbath albums back in the day in your room when heavy metal was considered the devil's music by the PMRC. Those hours spent in front of the big stereo system and vinyl turntable with long greasy hair, acne....it's complete nostalgia.

There are eight songs that will make you feel like you are running through a graveyard in the middle of the night under a full moon hearing wolves in the distance. Afraid of blood-sucking ghouls in the shadows. "Demoniac" starts off "Land Of Mystery" with creepy pipe organs that sound straight out of an old Up All Night/Monster movie marathon that gives away to the very desolate and almost psychedelic breezy intro with Robert Measles sounding like a demented mental patient. Oh and there are riffs that DEFIND what doom metal should sound like. "Demoniac" turns out to be the fastest song on "Land of Mystery" with a very killer NWOBHM-tone and speed. If you don't find yourself nodding, or head-banging to this song, fuck you poseur. It reminds me a lot of Exorcist's "Black Mass" from the cult "Nightmare Theater" album as far as delivery and a great opening track. "Land of Mystery" opens and is filled with some of the doomiest fucking riffs ever. Robert Measles conjures up images of early Candlemass. "All My Evil" is an evil heavy stomper. "Bells Of Death" starts off very eerie and psychadelic with church organs, winds of blurred hues of dark colors and amazing melodies. "Blind Men And Occult Forces" is probably one of the more progressive sounding tracks on "Land Of Mystery". “Spectral World” showcases Robert Measles warm blood-pumping bass lines. At some parts he sounds like Rob Halford! More spooky church/pipe organs. “Obscurity In The Ethereal House” starts of with a mid-paced galloping beat ala’ Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” and is an instrumental. Excellent way to end in a highpoint on an album that takes the listener through a dark journey that at times is reminiscent of our childhoods and cool October nights that lead up to Halloween.

I will probably be listening to this album for years to come. I know I will. Black Hole's "Land Of Mystery" is an album that I managed to unearth from a cemetery in a tomb covered by centuries of time and dust and have inhaled the deathly fumes from and passed out into a deep dark slumber of monsters, castles, dungeons, and fog. You should too.

A masterpiece of atmospheric doom metal - 90%

heavymetalrulez, May 4th, 2009

By the time 1985 came around, doom metal and psychedelic rock was a thing of the past. The era of bands such as Black Sabbath and such influenced bands had come to pass, and now in 1985 there were albums being released such as Bonded by Blood and Seven Churches, fast, violent, thrash, that was far different then the doom metal of earlier times. The doom metal scene was shrinking, as many bands had moved on to faster music. However this obscure Italian band Black Hole defied the trend of the times, even when a lot of metal bands around the world, even some of their fellow countrymen such as Bulldozer, were releasing much faster, destructive music. Black Hole however was much slower, and still stuck to the pattern of dark, atmospheric music that Black Sabbath had produced in the early 1970s.

One of the main strengths that Black Hole had over other metal bands however, was atmosphere. This album evokes a very dark, eerie, atmosphere. Imagine being trapped deep in a dark dungeon under an evil sorcerers castle, with not a sound but the occasional scurrying of rats, not a light but the flicker of a torch on the spiral staircase at the end of the dungeon hall, the smell of death and decay around you, the snowy mountains and looming dark green forests visible outside a small window. And sometimes late in the night you strain your ear to hear the sorcerer playing mysterious melodies and chords on a pipe organ, and sometimes you might hear distant voices, hoping for your freedom, but you are still immobilized in a darkened cell deep beneath the castle, forgotten probably and left to rot. That's my interpretation of a scene of what this albums atmosphere portrays, desolation and despair. This album feels like shackles, chaining you down, never seeing the light of day, only the starlit night.

The vocals on this album done by Robert Measles help portray a sense of desolation and loneliness quite well, as his voice sounds so far away and sorrowful : another prisoner in another section of the dungeon, crying out his laments of despair and stories of strange things he has seen, forever doomed to remain chained up, desperately clinging to his memories of past freedom. He even sounds like the distant wailing of a ghost at times, such as in "Demoniac City". It seems Robert prefers to stay most of the time at the lower end of his range, he never really goes that high like Ozzy, but lower and more ghostly than Scott Weinrich.

The riffing/guitars on this album however, are the real spectacle of this album. These riffs aren't the fast, crazy, thrashing madness that characterized other songs at the time like "Metal Thrashing Mad" or "A Lesson in Violence" . Black Hole went down a different road, creating instead mysterious, gloomy, meandering melody lines. Instead of the "denim and leather" attitude that characterized many bands, Black Hole's riffs feel like walking alone through a darkened grave yard. Or like being trapped in dungeon, such as the scene I described earlier. Anything to do with darkness or despair would do, really. The fastest Black Hole gets is in "Demoniac City", with at parts is fast enough to pass as a mid paced thrash song. Coincidentally (or not), this happens to be one of the heaviest songs on the album.

You don't really hear pipe organs in metal that often, or for that matter any form of music really. However in every song on here, there are glimpses of an organ or pipe organ, which really adds to the mysterious atmosphere that this band has going. This ties in with the sorcerer playing the organ that I mentioned earlier, the murky chords and melody lines. A lot of times it is not real easy to pick out necessarily, as it is kind of low in the mix, but if you pay attention carefully you can hear the warped, twisted chord progressions that are played sometimes behind the guitar lines.

Even though this album is pretty obscure, it is worth getting if you can find it, as this is a masterpiece of atmospheric doom metal. The way everything just fits together on this album really proves to be dark and mysterious (am I using that word to much?) slab of doom metal done right, unlike some doom metal which can get quite boring at times.

Cult Italian Doom - 76%

Agathocles, May 14th, 2004

Black Hole is a surreal doom band, incredibly similar to mid-early and early Paul Chain.

What we have here is a very esoteric album. On this album, the atmosphere is just going all over the place. It's very proggy, but in a mystical sort of way. I kind of get a Jacula/Black Widow/Goblin type vibe sometimes when I listen to this lp.

Note to potential listeners: Don't expect to hear a lot of heavy riffs. This album is largely atmosphere and lead driven (like the work of Paul Chain, save his early work like Detaching From Satan (or rather his detaching from Death SS) and In The Darkness. But overall, I think this will be something that most people will enjoy.

Two key moments in where there is heavy riffing is at the end of "All My Evil" and "Blind Men And Occult Forces". The rest of the riffs are mostly lead riffs, and some of the solos on this album are very well done.