Thy Will Be Done on Earth as Is Done in Hell

Well, I don't overtly hate it; I'll give Thy Will Be Done on Earth as Is Done in Hell that much right from the start. But at the same time, do we really need yet another North American equivalent to Dimmu Borgir? We already have a few okay-ish bands keeping whatever is left of that flame alive (one of which I will mention shortly for comparison purposes) - so what the hell do Artep have to add to the odious mixing pot? Well, it is worth pointing out that this is more or less the result of a single creative mind, that of one Petra Sobotka. When evaluated with this taken into account, Thy Will Be Done on Earth as Is Done in Hell begins to adopt a more appealing luster, although at its best it comes off as a lesser version of Dark Funeral's more indulgent moments, sprinkled with some more symphonic flair.

So to come back to that comparison I cited, the band that Artep resembles most is without a doubt Dragonlord, specifically their uneven and directionless debut Rapture, replete with the sporadic grindcore padding and otherwise straightforward worship of genre conventions. The subject matter at hand here is unmitigated rubbish, from the album title all the way down to the lyrics, but I suppose that Petra believes this is simply the way it has to be. Wouldn't be so much of a problem, but her vocals are depressingly more or less intelligible, working that whole modern Shagrath vocoder abuse angle without regular death growls to complement them. Her capability behind the axes ensures that the material is something more than lifeless, but her impish sneer can and will test patience levels far sooner than intended. In any event, more than a couple of the songs here are surprisingly well written and riff-oriented like the restless "Armageddon" and the monolithic, propelled dirge of "Desolate Land," at least enough to forgive other imbalances outright.

Petra even attempts pushing the envelope later on in the procession with "Black War," which somehow doesn't bore despite a seven-plus minute runtime. The use of orchestrations is fair enough, as Thy Will Be Done on Earth as Is Done in Hell pulls this off courtesy of the fact that the riffs are never unnecessarily submerged in bombast. This is all well and good, but I can't help but shake the impression that the band is stuck between two extremes, hanging for dear life over a gaping abyss not unlike those repeatedly referenced in the lyrics. Essentially, Artep teases at a polished, mechanized wall of sound akin to Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia, but the mix subverts these intentions. DeBoer's drums are mixed in such a way that it gives the record a decent-enough live feel on its own - but this clashes wholly with the streamlined approach elsewhere. Plus, whenever he tries to pull off gravity blasts, everything just sonically goes down the crapper. It sounds like someone is shaking a maraca, or an aluminum jar with change in it.

It is a shame that the production belies the broad and reasonably diverse compositional climate, but that isn't to say that Artep totally nails the remainder, either. "Eruption" is a pretty awkward-sounding mess half of the time, and the inventively-titled "Antichrist" isn't exactly the most convincing opener. In fact, Thy Will Be Done on Earth as Is Done in Hell undoubtedly gets better as it goes, a shame as many listeners won't make it far enough to appreciate some of the stronger individual numbers. Petra can write some snappy and airtight tremolos, I'll give her that, but the ideas are stretched a bit too thin for me to call this record a success on any level. She needs to restructure the approach to better suit her strengths, and then we might get somewhere. That said, Thy Will Be Done on Earth as Is Done in Hell is far from the worst thing ever, and fans of modern symphonic black metal will enjoy a few of these songs.