Ô Laudate Dominvs

After encountering so many extraordinary black metal recordings and artists from the Land of La Marseillaise, I finally come across an ordinary black metal album in the form of "O Laudate Dominus". I guess the title itself is a giveaway - if it had been called "O Laudate Satanas" or whatever is appropriate in the Latin, the Devil himself surely would have given Glorior Belli a hand in creating an inspired and great work. Admittedly the band has an aggressive approach and the musicians are good at what they do which is straightforward technical BM.

Only the gruff vocals stand out: they're throat sandpaper comparable to US black metal vocalist Imperial (Krieg) but even then Imperial outdoes the GB singer in sheer wildness. Yes, however fast and angry GB get, they still seem very sane and disciplined and that may be why I'm not so impressed with this album. While it's true that a lot of French black metal is never so wild as to sound like it's falling apart, at least the musicians compensate by channelling the music into righteous causes such as lambasting the Roman Catholic Church for its corruption. Here, GB don't give us that compensation.