Limbonic Art
"The Ultimate Death Worship"
cd 2002

Quite possibly the best 'nowadays BM' album this year.

Due out mid-September, this album impressed me quite a lot, i suppose the influence that stands out most would be that of Emperor, with a sound that i suppose would be inbetween 'Anthems.....' and 'X1 Equilibrium'. If you were to play it to somebody who had not heard the last two Emperora albums, but knew Anthems well, they could be forgiven for thinking it was Emperor, until the vocals came in atleast. It's not that it rips off Emperor songs or anything like that, but they do have a similar type of production although with more 'crunch', but you would still have to class it as BM rather than DM. The structure to the songs is also comparable with Emperor: Many riffs to each song, quite a lot of tempo changes, synths coming in/out of the mix quite often - all adding up to a quite complex outcome, although not on the same scale as bands like Abigor.

Track 1, the title track, starts with a slightly industrial peice before the proper 'start' of the song. This is a really good opening track, and sets the mood quite well for the rest of the album. It was a song that i was able to get into straight away, which can be a good or bad thing, but it gave me a good feeling when hearing it for the first time which was what i wanted. During the last minute of the song there are some spoken word parts, whether taken from films or not i do not know.

Track 2, Suicide Commando , starts off well, with a slow riff that quickly changes to a fast, slightly Satyricon styled riff. I think it is my favourite song on the album, there is a lot of power and emotion on offer - with the synths really working well with the guitars.

Track 3 reminds me of Abruptum in a way, it is not a proper song, more just an experimental peice, perhaps indicating the end of the first quarter, and showing that that something slightly different is on its way.

Towards the Oblivion of Dreams (Track 4) is the longest song on the album at 10 minutes, it starts of with some quite cheesey narratative parts, and has many slow parts to it. It took me 3 listens to get into this song, where-as with the first 2 i was hooked straight away. This could be because it was the 4th song and i had lost some concentration, but i think it is actually due to it being more technical/having more variety to it. It's a real giant of a song, and could be considered the centre-peice to the album, or maybe the end of the first half, atleast.

Track 5 is quite like track 3, various synth loops with some screaming, basically. It's quite a good sounding track though, not like some crap you get with 'nowadays Black Metal'.

Track 6, Interstellar Overdrive, has more of the cruch sound of the first two songs, but has a similar melody to that of track 4. Pretty fast paced (again) and the shortest of the proper songs at 6 mins. I like the snarling attitude that comes across in the vocals in this track. This song probably has the most synths in it, but they are usually there as a guide to the other instruments as there is only one part where they are at the fore-front of the sound.

From Shades of Hatread, Track 7 here, has quite a similar sound and feel to track 6 although there does seem to be a slight Swedish influence in there. After about 3mins 15 there comes in a slow riff that REALLY reminds me of something else, from a Death Metal band i think - it doesn't really detract from the song though.

Track 8, the last track, with perhaps one of the most un-original titles of all metal songs (Funeral of Death) is very obviously the last track, as it has that kind of closing ceremony feel to it.. It's not slow or anything like that, but the riffs just give that motion of things coming to an end. Not a bad track at all, but definitely not the best on the album.

So what i have i missed? The vocals are your general bm screams, but are pretty good. They dont get annoying at any stage and are said/screamed/sung with quite a lot of conviction, which is always good. The drums (i am assuming) are undertaken by a drum machine in normal Limbonic Art tradition. They dont add to the sound which they can do in some bands, but they fit quite well with the music and i was never dis-gruntled enough to think 'why dont they get a real drummer?'. I dont have the lyrics on offer, but they basically seem to be about life/death, as the album title suggests. Overall, this album is certainly not a genre classic, but i would say it will be in my top 5 BM/top 10 Metal albums of the year come the end of it.
8/10.

reviewer: Greg aka Gompo
taken from : blackmetal.co.uk