The Place of Worship

Act of god, hailing from Perm, released their first full legnth album where they play orchestral blackened death metal, fronted by operatic female vocalist, and coupled with evil blasphemous male vocals and music. That’s at least what could resume this album in few words for those who are impatient to read the details.

Alright, let’s start off with the content of this sweet torment. First off, production wise, it nears perfection, everything is well mixed, and every instrument can be heard clearly, making the sound of this album clean and easy to hear. Now jumping to the album content, this is a quite different symphonic black death metal than what you are used to hear, actually this is a new dimension of extreme metal music fully based on piano and synth. The music is mostly supported by operatic female vocals, but regardless, this remains very evil in nature.

Now to the songwriting, the guitars play a secondary role, but they still leave a great touch on the album. The guitarist, Ilya Vesnin, delivers memorable riffs that can get technical, supported by awesome hunting solos. The drums here are for the most part blast beats portraying the brutal side of the music. The bass is there to confirm this brutal sound, as it leaves a good impact on the architecture of the sound. Let’s move now to the main treat of this release, the keyboards. They lead the other instruments, as they are the main focus of the songwriting. Irina Vesnina offers awesome catchy orchestrations, and dark atmospheric tunes, which give a great devilish feeling to the sound. The aforesaid combination is supported by operatic talented vocals, and the singer here, Victoria Perminova, knows how to use her beautiful voice to compliment the evil sound, adding a great contrast. Occasionally, raspy screams and growls occur to surprise the listener indulging in the clean and beautiful singing of Veronica.


The Place of Worship is a unique piece of art regardless what genre it represents. This should be valued as a fine piece of musical act. Highly recommended for everyone who admires original music, fans of symphonic black death metal will appreciate it as well. Do yourself a favor and order your copy now, I’m pretty confident you will never regret buying this masterpiece.

Written for Encyclopaedia Metallum 08-03-2010
© Kimiwind