Here is a nice little witch’s dance, with demons, ghosts, manitous and other creatures of the night.
After a mysterious spoken words and keyboards intro about unleashing all the creatures, the rest of the album is a collection of rather fast and energetic black metal tracks about various monsters and dark themes, one for each song. The little problem is that a lot of those songs tend to sound the same, with some exceptions. So instead of complaining about that, let’s look at individual songs’ best qualities.
As I said, many tracks have a nice energy. Rise of the Undead and Dead Choir Hails the Birth have great heavy drumming and lots of heavy riffs, Condemned to Hell is really fast, and Spell of the Gorgons has a great guitar solo. Those tracks, especially, of course, Dead Choir, and most of the others also have nice little moments with gloomy choirs and bells. Another great use of the gloomy-sounding female guest vocals is the title track, entirely performed by the “dead choir”. This one is directly followed by Cold and Dark, the most furious track on the album.
I’ve also said that the songs tend to send too similar after a while. So let’s talk about the most original songs on the album: Perpetual Slumber, which is pretty fast and energetic despite its title, starts with strange guitar effects before turning into a nice black/thrash number. Manitou starts with someone talking about satanic messages and a dark keyboard sound, before a fast-paced verse done in a weird screech, very different from the other vocal performances of the album, and a chorus that screams the title repeatedly. One of the strangest on the album. And finally, the bonus track, Ritos de Iniciacao, is the only one sung in Portuguese, and one of the few tracks on the second half of the album to show some real evil energy.
Overall, it’s an album that has some nice ideas but doesn’t go far enough. It’s a nice collection of monster and witchcraft stories, with evil-sounding vocals, some kick-ass riffs and sinister bells and keyboards, all of which create an occult and dark, but kind of fun atmosphere. But despite that, the album starts out strong, and then loses energy after a few tracks, before getting better in the last songs. While I think it’s more competently made than other bland black metal albums I have recently reviewed, it’s not the kind of album you absolutely need to hear. If you do listen to it, stick to the highlights I already described.
Release date: June 18th 2021
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