Towards Damnation

Diaboli, this name sounds pretty cute for German ears and makes me think of a little, harmless devil. It is therefore all the more gratifying that the music of the project is anything else but harmless. An icy, almost sterile guitar sound and a simple drum rhythm welcome the listener. The snare accelerates the velocity and multi-instrumentalist Petri Ilveskappa starts his guttural nagging with a lot of reverb on it. Dive into true Finnish black metal which evokes the feeling of coldness and misanthropy. The colourless cover image of the barren northern landscape is doubtlessly well selected and leads to a coherent appearance of the album.

Generally speaking, the Finnish lone wolf has a clear vision of how his music shall sound. His puristic approach illustrates that he does not intend to surpass the boundaries of the black genre. The songs commute between high speed and mid-paced rhythms, while any other kind of variation does not show up. With regard to the remorseless lead guitar, a higher degree of diversification is not required. But probably due to his innate generosity, Petri also offers two atmospheric instrumentals. Both do not have a metallic format, only a keyboard shows up. The first one reminds of Count Raven's similar tunes on "Destruction of the void", the second one sends its greetings to Graveland's elegiac intros and outros. However, these acceptable numbers are not the tracks that shape the overall impression of the album. They just add another spot of colour while delivering a higher degree of depth than the guitar based tracks.

I don't want to beat about the bush: the six black metal elaborations do not present unique features. The melodies generate the typical Nordic aura. Petri is not the leader of the black metal pack. He is a faithful follower. But he does not lack of integrity or musical competence and his here described second album has definitely some good songs, although an overwhelming masterpiece is missing. The reverently marching "Saatanan Viha" shows the most traditional riff of the album while the remaining pieces are equipped with this kind of streamlined leads that generate a certain form of cruelty. "Under the Leadership of a New God", for instance, contrasts with the aforementioned piece, because its mainly hurrying drum works like a machine gun. A late highlight.

I cannot identify a specific band that has left its mark on the sound of Diaboli. Instead, the one man army has mixed everything which operates under the name of craggy, effective and fairly simple black metal. One might say that this is just another genre release whose original elements remain discreetly in the background. Nevertheless, "Towards Damnation" sounds neither stale nor lame. It is an interesting contemporary document that expresses the spirit of the Scandinavian black metal wave of the nineties. In my opinion, you are well advised to give it a try.