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Transilvanian Hunger - 80%
Warning: "Vampyrisme, Nècrophile, Nècrosadisme, Nècrophagie" is a "trve" black metal album with very little symphonic and gothic metal influences. Fans of later releases such as "Suicide Vampire", "Nightbreed of Macabria" and the Sonya Scarlet era should think twice before listening to this album. In fact, this album is more likely to appeal fans of traditional black metal bands such as Darkthrone, Mayhem, Burzum and Sarcófago.
Theatres des Vampires' debut album is a pure black metal work as it has: high pitched shrieks, horrible production, tremolo-picked guitar riffs, repetitive and fast drumming with plenty of blast beats, and songwriting focusing more on raw speed and brutality. The difference between this work and the following ones is that it has very little symphonic and gothic metal influences, and the keyboards are not the dominant instrument, instead the tremolo-picked guitars lead all the songs.
One of the strong points of this album are the vocals, which can be described as raw and primitive. Lord Vampyr hasn't fully developed his clean singing yet, and his shrieks sound stronger and rawer than never before. There is still a trace of his doom/death metal grunts of his early days with Sepolcrum and VII Arcano. This is easily, the best vocal preformance that Lord Vampyr has ever given in his entire career. It's such a pity that his voice has got weaker in his following works. Songs that show off the vocal range of this talented man are: "Upon the Darkest Mountain", the only song that in its full-length features only shrieking, and a really good one I must say. "Woods of Valacchia" with a good mix of vocal styles: witch chants used as background vocals, clean singing in some parts, and insane shrieking in the most brutal parts of the song. "Vlad the Impaler" has shrieks in its verses, screams and grunts in the pre-chorus, clean vocals in the chorus, and death grunts and clean spoken vocals in its ending.
Another pro of this album are the guitars and the keyboards. The guitars dominate the entire album, tremolo-picked riffs are found everywhere, giving to the music that raw sound that characterizes black metal. The keyboards are exclusively used as a backing instrument, with the only purpose of giving an eerie atmosphere to the music. Some of the most interesting songs instrumentally speaking are: "Twilight Kingdom" which is pretty brutal in its full lenght, with tremolo-picked guitars found everywhere, powerful shrieking and actually a quite good drum work at the end of the song. "Woods of Vallacchia" is easily the best song of this opus and a rollercoaster in its entirety: a very brutal pure black metal intro which is repeated nearly the end of the song; a hypnotic mid-part with some of the eeriest church organ lines I have ever heard backed up by brutal tremolo-picked guitars, shrieking and Lord Vampyr's signature witch chant; then the song slows down into an acoustic guitar riff with Lord Vampyr repeating some Wiccan chants just to be immediately followed by a chaotic quick part with some of the most intense shrieking Lord Vampyr has ever made; after that the intro pattern is repeated and afterwards the song fades with a repetitive riff and a bass line backing it. "Vlad the Impaler" is the most melodic song found in this album and the most similar to the ones found in "The Vampire Chronicles" and "Bloody Lunatic Asylum": it has the most melodic tremolo-picked guitar riffs and a doom/death metal feeling in its chorus and outro.
However, this album has its weaknesses. The most obvious is the horrible production, characteristic of "trve" black metal. The volume is very low in the recording, so you must listen this album with headphones to fully appreciate the music found in it. It is very clear that the main influences of Theatres des Vampires at this point are "trve" black metal bands like Darkthrone and Mayhem, for this reason this work also suffers the same trouble of the latter bands: repetition. This is seen especially in the drum work, the same patterns are used over and over again, making some parts of the album quite uninteresting and boring. Also some songs are plagued by sloppiness and sound forced, for example, "While the Snow Turns Red" while has it has its moments, the verses sound pretty sloppy as the instruments are off rhythm.
The lyrics, as in every Theatres des Vampires release with Lord Vampyr, are quite cheesy and overly simple. They are also plagued by spelling and grammar mistakes, since English is not the native language of the band. All the songs talk about blood drinking, raping and sacrificing virgins, creatures hiding in the woods and Satanism; written in a very cheap and almost laughable way. "Twilight Kingdom" talks about the Romanian city of Sighisoara and Dracula's reign of terror. "Reborn in the Wood" is a song about a vampire dwelling in a dark forest and the powers he has. "Within the Dark Domain" has the better written lyrics: it tells the story of an unfortunate traveler that enters into an uninhabited house where a female vampire lives. "Vlad the Impaler" is a song about the man that inspired the Dracula myth.
In conclusion, this is an album that will mostly please traditional black metal fans and hardcore Theatres des Vampires ones. It is a quite good work for what it has to offer, fortunately Theatres des Vampires will drastically improve and their three following albums are some of the best and most original material ever released in the metal universe. To sum up, this is a highly recommendable work and worth hunting down, since it is pretty rare.
Highlights: Twilight Kingdom, Reborn in the Wood, Woods of Vallacchia, Upon the Darkest Mountain, Vlad the Impaler.
