Inhale Satan

Yes, me lads, the time has come to bring Satanic worshipping to a new level. No more of these tiring recitations, candle orgies, goat sacrifices, endless deflowering of virgins, countless hours spend on mastering intelligible as well as often faked ritual texts and let us not forget all the money that is necessary to acquire the stream of unholy or supposedly sacred artefacts. Now, the time has come to give us a good inhale of Satan: a chance to suck in the essence of our evil master and to let the evil spirit flow through the blood veins; it is therefore mandatory to avoid cutting and self-mutilation, because it would only result in a lessen of the diabolic presence.

Sadly, 'Ars Praesagus', now shortened to 'Ars', debut demo does not offer any deeper insights into the realm of satanic evaporation. Maybe a grindcore band would have elaborated this topic to a certain degree, but this Finnish black/death metal band falls back to the all too common bickering about who can bring the lyrical expressiveness to a new level; 'I Cum on Your Christ'. At least the aspect of 'ownership' has been made clear quite explicitly.

In terms of the music the band presents a variety of approaches on their first ep. Each of the three songs differ in some respect, despite the general idea behind the music. While the opener follows more or less the standard conservative black / death approach, the second track 'I Cum on Your Christ' has two kinds of vocals and also the dynamics are a bit different; a bit punkish at times. Ignis Dominus on the other hand has some surprisingly mechanical and therefore sterile elements in it.

The tempo switches between aggressive and calm as well as slow moments. 'Ars Praesagus' present a good amount of variation in their concept, which, despite a slight shallowness and predictability in their approach, makes the debut ep an interesting listening experience. And even though the songs tend to drag on for a bit too long, the intensity is able to compensate this a bit.

Note:
Limited to 100 copies.

Based on a review originally written for ‘A dead spot of light (Number 20)’:
http://www.archive.org/details/ADeadSpotOfLight...Number20