Today I'm going to review a band that plays a genre that I don't like very much, I'm talking about Symphonic Black metal. Triump ov Fire offer us a various Black metal album, but with many Symphonic Black metal influencies. The main thing of this band is the voice; to me the voice is adapt to this musical genre and listening I thought that was perfect and In the Name of the Black Principle is a good album also for the instrumental stuff. Unfortunately I could have enjoyed all this more if it had been composed in a better way, in my opinion there's just a few of originality and the recordings are not so good. It's not a bad album but it's neither a masterpiece. It could have been done a better work if it contained more guitar instrumental parts and riffs and if it was recorded better...
After 17 years without releasing albums, the norwegian Black metal band Crest of Darkness finally releases a new album, In the Presence of Death. Probably most of Black metal lovers had already listened to this band, and whit this album also Progressive metal and Power metal listeners will know this band, because the singer in this album was also singer of the Power metal band Conception. It's a great leap to play Black metal after having singed in a Power metal band for many years, in facts the sound is much more clean than in other albums of this genre, and you can hear the bass better than in a normal Raw Black metal song. This is a traditional Black Metal album, but with Death metal and Doom metal influences. The powerfull riffs, the violent drums and the angry screams create a sort of incredible musical vortex, rich of strange atmospheres and showing also an excelent musical technique. In my opinion the best tracks of this CD are obviously the title track, "In the Presence of Death", "Demon Child" and "Welcome to my Funeral"; these song are able in a particular way to improve the technical level of the album. I think that this is absolutely a good album, but this band needs to do a quality leap that will improve again the level of the band, because to me they can't show totally their abilities.
Today I'm gonna review Mutilanova, which is a french Symphonic Black metal band. If I speak about french Symphonic Black metal some of you might think at bands such as Anorexia Nervosa or Le Grand Guignol, but also Mutilanova may offer you some good stuff, if you like this musical scene. Their music is fast and violent, but at the same time are melodic and harmonious and the merit goes to the choruses and to the keyboards; Nera Lux has very good and heavy rhythms, characterized by harsh riffs and heavy drums lines. The guitarist plays typical Symphonic Black metal riffs, violent and melodic at the same time, that may attract the listener in a particular way and that are the main characterization of Symphonic Black metal; the drums constantly executes fast rhythms, broken out by strange musical passages or rhythmical time changes. The singer has a particular scream and his way of singing is angry and suffered at the same time, and listening better you can hear that the singing part are a little less important in this work, probably because the players gave much more importance to the perfect instrumental execution of the songs, but it doesn't ruine the work. To me is a very good album also if it sounds a little incomplete. Anyway I recommend you to listen to this band! RATING: 7/10 -SADIK- (-Dom-)
