Stormblade

Demoniac's debut was a poor attempt at cavernous black metal with melodic and epic overtones with heavy metal influences that was decent at best, the third album was a power metal album with shrieks that didn't quite work. But this album in between is an attempt to merge those two trends, showing the worst side of Demoniac, if you thought like me that The Fire and the Wind was bad, get ready because this is even worse.

This could count as a parody album, because the more I listen to it the more I'm sure that they didn't want to do anything playing black metal, the Iron Maiden influences are very powerful and not dissimulated at all, making the songs sound extremely melodic, much more than what their titles and vocals would seem, making it feel like they are playing two different songs at the same time that have nothing to do with each other, creating an unpleasant disjunctive where you try to think what can be recoverable in the song when in reality it's all terrible. Nothing fits with anything, the instrumentation is simple and unimaginative, the vocals don't match and at times seem out of tempo, the drums are sterile and contribute absolutely nothing, it seems that literally the musicians are worse than what they showed on the debut, it could be considered a joke or that they just didn't seem to care about anything and would rather make musical shitpost.

The fact is that all the songs follow a similar flow while the musical influences differ, sometimes there are traces of power metal, others of melodic death metal and others even of punk oriented. One can think that at a certain point they would have to realise how tremendously absurd it all ends up sounding, because if they weren't aware of it is that they were (or are) very stupid, and if they were aware of it is that they were (or are) straight up dickheads.

The production is bad and poor, but not from the point of view of a typical black metal band or one with few resources, but it is literally a lame and amateurish production, one that tries to be as good as possible and fails miserably, and that would be basically the summary of the album. Everything seems to indicate that it wants to be a respectable musical work but it doesn't get any merit to be taken seriously, there are so few moments where the album can sound legitimately good that I believe that they are more the result of luck so I refuse to accept any kind of redeeming element.

But the piece that I find most strange is the final song, being a central theme in this review, the dance between not knowing if this album is a subtle parody or just a very bad album comes into play with this track, possibly the most over the top song Demoniac has done, with extreme dimensions of pretension that confuse me if it is a legitimate attempt to make an epic and grandiloquent ending or if it is a joke that has been stretched too long until it loses any sort of fun. Clean vocals, acoustic guitars, segments of silence, deep and creepy atmosphere, anything goes in a song that will only stay in your head because of the confusion that will remain in your mind after having listened to something that at no point has been coherent or made any sense. No matter how many styles they tried, no matter if they sounded melodic or raw, everything they tried was horrible and insufferable.

In short, this is the band's "most" album, it's the most unfocused, it's the most absurd, it's the most cringe-inducing and the most insufferable to listen to. It makes you feel relieved that they stopped making music like this and makes Dragonforce sound like Vivaldi compared to this.

This became DragonForce? That might be one of the greatest plot twists in music history. New Zealand's Demoniac does a lot of things, but take Black Metal 101 was clearly not one of them. There's really only two rules that are taught in this class I made up, Production must be CONSISTENTLY poor, and the vocals cannot be forced. Demoniac does not follow either of these two rules. The production on the first two tracks are confusingly pretty solid, and then it takes an unappreciated nosedive for the third track. Don't tease us with a well-produced black metal album only to not deliver.

The instrumentation on this album is pretty solid. It has the aloof drumming that beats on into the abyss, nonexistent bass, and some soaring, melodic guitar leads that are pretty soothing to listen to. The compositions aren't half bad either, as most of the material here flows very nicely and the band presents some very thorough musical ideas. This sounds like the perfect recipe for a quality black metal album, except the vocals are absolutely terrible. And I mean they are AWFUL. Screaming aimlessly into the microphone does not constitute a good vocal performance. And black metal vocals cast a pretty wide net; Mayhem and Emperor, for example, have very different vocal styles. But just because there is a lot of variety does not mean anyone can do it. Most of the time the vocals are just yelled with no pitch, no delivery, no anything that would make them even the slightest bit memorable. The singer is just trying to force his voice to sound scary or demonic for the sake of it, and it does not work at all.

Now, just because the vocals are bad does not mean I am going to immediately dismiss all of the material here, because there are some worthwhile moments that glare through, ever so dimly, just hoping for a shot at being noticed. "Fight the War" brings in some pretty cool punk influences in the drumming, even if it's hard to hear with the production being extra poor for this one. "Red Light" also sounds like it's working with some early-'seventies doom metal or hard rock, and for the most part this sound translates pretty well in the song. For the good ideas that the band does put out there, there are some that fall flat though. "Into the Cavern Light" has a VERY tame riff, almost bordering on like AC/DC levels of simplicity. This is metal, the guitar work has to be a cut above basic hard rock from the 'seventies, even if those bands can be marked as influences. There are some awkward melodies that sometimes get thrown into the mix as well, which aren't the worst thing but definitely don't fit the theme. Maybe once for eccentricity was fine, but when it keeps showing up song after song, it makes you turn your head.

Overall, this isn't an awful black metal album, but it definitely isn't a good one. This thing is probably better off being left on the shelf, and if you want to check out some good music that came from this project, check out the band that came later down the road in DragonForce, one of the greatest power metal bands ever.