Promises of Impurity

This is fairly underwhelming. There's nothing really wrong with Impious, it's just relatively uncreative and unnecessary. The band writes capably executed enough midpaced black metal, but they really don't do anything very new or exciting on this, their only demo. Honestly I find it somewhat surprising that they're not more awesome, considering that it features to Ezurate members, but the results could certainly be worse.

Impious plays a mildly epic form of Norwegian-derived black metal the operates primarily at a moderate pace and concentrates on militaristic, lurching drum work and frosty, somewhat Gravelandy riffing. It's not as droning, folk-influenced, or well-produced as that notable project, but the similarities are there in the riff department. Vocals are a somewhat nasal rasp courtesy of Ezurate vocalist Holocausto Inferni, but are somewhat buried in the mix along with the drums, while the guitars are far in front. Those strings are somewhat badly recorded; too loud, overdistorted, difficult to hear the riffs sometimes due to these factors. What you can hear of the riffs, though, are good, like Ezurate's slower parts filtered through Graveland's eastern European style. Nothing amazing, but enjoyable enough.

I guess this is interesting stuff if you've never heard black metal that's primarily mid-paced, but overall it's unexciting. I like some of the riffs; they have a good, cold sound and are epic enough to bring wizards and dragons to mind, but overall the demo never really goes anywhere enough to become very remarkable. I like it, but it's a pretty lukewarm like overall. Although I can't see a whole lot WRONG with it, it just rests way too close to the line of average to be particularly easy to recommend. Good enough for the $3 I got it for though.