The Latent Doctrine

I was very pleasantly surprised by this album. I’ve never heard the bands demo, nor have I even heard of the band for that matter, but this debut sure rubs me the right way. And I’m surprised it’s a debut too as it’s musically way better than tons of other black metal bands going on after five albums already.

After an occult intro we’re offered mesmerizing atmospheric black metal with a pagan touch to it. The riffs and drums might grind you to dust as well as suddenly halting to a stop only to let the keyboard do its thing by adding a marvellous atmospheric touch. And as the riffing and drumming sets in once again the keyboard is there to give it an obscure, occult atmosphere. This album is just as much about harsh screaming of mysticism and raw black metal pounding as it is about atmosphere. But if you take away the latter mentioned ingredient you’re left with a cold soundtrack to ragnarök. And with the atmosphere (I know I’ve mentioned this word way too many times now, but it’s such a key part of the album that I have to) on top of that the result is just mind-blowing. Brutal pounding meets cold chanting meets hypnotically transferred images of chaos, death and despair. Pagan Spirit continues where other falters. The only remark I have is that the album might be just a little too long. I mean it’s over an hour long and that’s a little too much in my book. Some might complain that the music rely too steadily on the keyboard, but it my opinion it doesn’t. Sure, the keyboard is used widely, but only as a supplement to enhance the already planted seed of bleak darkness. I can really see this band grow into a full-out monster in the black metal scene.

Originally written for www.mylastchapter.net

When I read the name of the band I expected a CD from an Ukrainian or Russian folk metal band, but it turned out to be a Slovak “symphonic pagan black” metal. Quite an unusual genre, unfortunately we cannot say the same about the music.

The cover and the keyboard intro evokes truly demonic atmosphere and the album can start. Unfortunately with not really an interesting track Circle Of Actived Powers .. massacres the ears quite well, but that's it. Second song starts and I reckon that I have the CD Norther – Mirror of madness in my CD player :-) After the intro everything changes to “normal” and both the clean voice and riffs typical to pagan metal bands dominate .. there is space for an acoustic passage, too .. good music. But from this song on all we can expect is a mixture of not really special black metal songs in any possible way I can think of. Keyboards come to the front all the time, at times the blast of the riffs is disturbed by a kind of disharmonic solo. After first three four songs the album becomes one virtually unchanging mass, which doesn't really leave any impression on the listener .. maybe only Belial with quite an interesting opening and good guitars at some moment. Album is closed by a keyboard outro.

After couple of spins I still couldn't start liking the album .. some good passages can't save the whole album from boredom. We'll see how this band will evolve in the future.

Written for http://www.metalzone.info