Throcult "Soldiers of a Blackened War" CD
[Crash]
I thought the demo from this self-proclaimed "Diverse Black Metal" group was promising, and their debut full-length offers up just under 30 minutes of fine-tuned black/death metal with a good dose of tactful melody as well as moderate technicality on occasion. I wouldn't exactly call it diverse, but in their defense it's not one-sided either. Most of the songs are driven by moderately paced to fast riffing that ranges from straightforward tremolo picking to crunchy chord progressions with doomy lead lines or discordant note combinations and chord phrasings. Some of the riffing has a little bit of a modern death/thrash feel while the vocals tend to be midrange sneers (with low growls on occasion). The bulk of "Eclipse of the Blood Moon" is textbook black metal, which, while rather generic, I must say I love, and that's what I'd love to hear this band stick with, because they're very good at keeping things relatively simple with a little bit of added flare just going for the throat. "Ellipsis" is easily the best of the more "diverse" tracks, fluidly blending not only crushing rhythms with thrashy speeds, but also experimenting with some spoken vocals and effects that work out fairly nicely. As for the recording, there's still not enough low-end here, but thankfully the keyboards are much farther in the background and therefore less disruptive. An exceedingly taut drum sound is the biggest problem, lacking density and cutting though the mix quite a bit. The guitars are too dry, but they work, as do the vocals. I would just up the bass guitar levels (which are basically nonexistent) and work with slightly thicker and warmer percussion... and yes, just get rid of the keyboards! They serve no purpose at all. Usually you can't hear them (thankfully), and when you can they clash with the direction of the music anyway. The layout's 50/50. I like the cover art a lot, and as I stated when I reviewed their demo, I think their band logo is absolutely excellent. But the rest of the layout, aside from the compact presentation of the lyrics, is a little bland. The cover painting of faceless hooded soldiers on horseback fades into some other less interesting imagery, the band photo isn't all that necessary, etc. But the most important aspect, the cover, does look really good, so... Most of the songs actually have lengthy sets of lyrics made up of many brief lines, but length doesn't necessarily reflect a quality of content: "Welcome to the slaughter, You'll need no eyes, Darkness is your sight, As the sky turns red, Prayers erased, No forgiveness, Ritual of pain, Unleashed on your soul, Endless wrath to become nothing." There's also a CD-Rom website on here with videos, photos, and all that shit. The three videos are all live and are sort of boring. They're not that bad as far as audio/picture quality, it's just sort of dark footage of the band either standing still or headbanging or whatever. No big thing. This is a solid record, but nothing that really grabs me. This band could be really good, but I don't see them straying too far from what they're doing right now, so I'm not really sure if they'll progress a whole lot down the road. Not bad, but something's still missing... (6/10)
Running time - 27:12, Tracks: 7
[Notable tracks: Eclipse of the Blood Moon, Ellipsis]
Crash Music - http://www.crashmusicinc.com

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