Dancing Through the Palace of the Ungodly Beauty

By the mid 90's, it had become abundantly clear that the black growth on metal music's back was getting bigger and bigger for sure. There were bands popping up everywhere. Even some death metal acts were starting to add black metal influences to their music, or changing styles completely, and by the late 90's we were up to our necks in black and white painted dudes tremelo-picking their way through the underground. How much of those were 'true to the cause' or 'false', that's not for me to say. All I know is that Liar of Golgotha vocalist Gorgoroth could not be accused of trend chasing, because the guy was in on the game from a very early point, and he made a valid point with his band when it came to black metal.

Liar of Golgotha (as usual with these long-ass names, LoG from here on) used a lot of the ingredients that the Scandinavian hordes made their initial mark with. Pretty hefty keyboard orchestration, tremelo-picked guitar work and hellish screams, poured into varied songs that go from slow to fast to even faster. I do have to say that despite these tried and tested components, LoG do manage to establish a certain touch of their own, because I can't really say "oh, this sounds like band X or Y", which is a plus. There are of course traces of acts like Emperor or early Cradle of Filth in the use of keyboard ambience, Marduk and Immortal are a reference in the faster parts, with further a pinch of Impaled Nazarene here, a tad of early 90's Rotting Christ added there, and with a splash of Ancient Rites in between, but the band never sounds like copycats. Despite my name-dropping here, I have to underline the fact that LoG really take this mixture and turn it into something their own. Aided by the above par musicianship, they establish an interesting cocktail of 90's black metal for sure. Here and there we even get female vocals, not utilizing any soprano kind of style, but more in a semi spoken manner, having me thinking of Anne Clark, which is another nice touch, for sure.

Unfortunately, not all of the tracks are that interesting, though. At times, the band tends to draw out their songs with parts that can get boring, like in "The Long Forgotten Wastelands", something that is not helped by the kinda flaccid production on this album. It makes the guitars and drums sound pretty bland, which drains the music of a part of its energy and power. The album is saved by the varied music and excellent execution, but as a whole it does sound lackluster, unfortunately.

This is not a bad album for sure, but it does get let down by the production, as well as a few so-and-so musical choices, but for a mid 90's black metal release, it certainly stands its ground for sure. LoG would really hit their stride on their later releases, so if you use this album as a starting point, there's a lot of blackened goodness to be uncovered later on.