Kings of Chaos

Jon was a problem. Jon wanted Hecate Enthroned to be the next Cradle of Filth, Jon wanted to be Cradle of Filth, Jon was Cradle of Filth. He trained Dani in the fine art of vampiric shrieking, where was his due, god dammit?? So Jon had to go, and he took Michael with him (in a way...). Now, Hecate were freed from the confines of a vocalist with too many delusions (and a questionable take on "poetic" lyrics) and were able to become a group of their very own, to pursue their own approach to things. They brought in a dude named Dean, whose bro Daz tagged along as keyboardist, and wasting absolutely no time came storming back with a giant middle finger in the face of every asshole's expectations of who they thought they were.

And, well...

If the simplistic song titles weren't any indication that we're dealing with a whole new band, a different one, then the bursting of "Perjurer" plumbing dark swampland versus the misty graveyards of old will catch you off guard. This time around, Hecate ditched a lot of their old black-clad corpse dressing and chose to swing in the complete opposite direction by way of a death metal-oriented sound, mixed with dashings of the black metal approach of old. Which...nah, didn't exactly work out completely.
One could actually forgive a group looking to venture forth along a path of their own doing if they actually knew how to do it well, and much as I'm sure they put forth considerable effort to bridge the gap between their old sound with a new one, it's all so very ham-fisted and inorganic.

In the olden times Hecate knew how to work proper black metal riffing, able to cultivate a dark and cold atmosphere working within the confines of the keyboard work, but with this the scales have tipped too much too soon, where we get very one-way song structures, forced chunky palm-mutes and attempts at atonal death riffing trying its best to stay atop single-note basic keyboard structures that are just there to be there. Not exactly a nod to the sounds of old but with the understanding that they knew they'd be playing those old songs live and, well, needs them the ivory tickler. And that's also not putting ol Mr. Dean in the spotlight, who I'll admit has a decent death growl but whose higher pitched shrieks leave plenty to be desired (too thin, too nasally)

I really wanted to give these guys the benefit of the doubt. I mean, I get it; they felt the comparisons were bullshit and they were more than just CoF wannabe coattail followers (which...whatever guys, we know where you got your fucking band name...). But for my money it would help if they had a better idea on how to go about such a major change. Not to mention the time put in to ease the listener into it; going from slick, ghostly symphonic black metal mystique to a barrage of death metal tropes slamming headlong into an icy mountain in one yearand one album is enough to induce whiplash. But hey, they had a message to send, a path had to be drawn, and why waste time?

So in the end, "Kings of Chaos" wasn't awful, but it was still a bit of a failure in spite of itself. HE went from being one of the finer British black metal entities to being just another European extreme metal act, unsure of itself and where to go, but damned if they'll end up back where they started. Pretty unmemorable, but not terrible; you'll give it a listen and forget you even have it.