Premonition of Fell Purpose

If I sit and consider the history of black metal, I find great gaps in my knowledge around the 2000s. On the one hand, what a shame to know that there is so much hateful dark art that I have yet to discover and perhaps never will; on the other hand, what joy to be completely surprised by a tape like this one. See, there is a reason that I have not heard as much mid-aughts black metal - much of what I have heard from that timeframe falls into one of two camps: either unimpressive second-wave worship or overproduced "symphonic" bullshit, plus the seemingly inescapable Norsecore that still punishes listeners today.

This is none of that.

The guitars, especially on first proper song "Dawn," are rather reminiscent of the classic 90s sound - wistful minor-key melodies tremolo-picked at blazing speeds over drums equally likely to be blast-beating or plodding along at half-time. The recording quality is certainly reflective of that aesthetic, lo-fi and muddy and punctuated by bursts of crash cymbal, plus vocals that hover like a wayward spirit over the noise. I'm especially keen on the nonverbal scream heard early in closing track "Into the Flames."

At its best, this is a solid addition to the ever-widening canon of French black metal, and a good look into real black metal circa 2005. Alas, the entire tape does not meet this quality standard.

"Falling Empire" is a swing and a miss - first a chunky, grindy section replete with death growls, then what is perhaps the most generic descending guitar line in black metal - or even metal generally. This is balanced out for part of the runtime with more traditional fare, and the parts that actually sound like black metal are all right (though I'll note that, halfway through, a rather inelegant punch-in separates what would have been an impressive drum fill from the blast beat section it leads into). Elsewhere, production issues crop up - though I do love the vocal stylings in "Into the Flames," I'm less impressed by the choice to pan most of those vocals hard left - works fine when listening to the tape via speakers at low volume, but with headphones it becomes an issue. And, of course, there are the several graceless cuts - vocal lines that don't get to fade naturally, that aforementioned drum punch... even the intro track ends so abruptly that I briefly wondered if my copy of the tape was damaged.

For me, this tape lands squarely in the category of demos I might pull off the shelf as mid-evening fodder across a long evening of listening. It's not something I'd select for its own uniqueness or exceptional quality, but as "playlist fodder" somewhere in the middle of a few hours of other bands it excels.