Not bad. Fast, precise, melodic black metal from Sweden that reminds me a little bit of Naglfar and the like, though this is somewhat more straightforward as far as sticking with lots of tremolo picking and subtle melodic sensibilities alongside blasting drums and your usual scathing vocal screams. There are a good amount of tempo changes and some discordant chord formations, nothing incredibly drastic, but there are some decidedly unique passages that definitely up the level of power quite a bit. To be quite honest, the songwriting here reminds me a whole lot of Naglfar's "Diabolical", just with fewer obvious melodies or note-based riffs and a "smoother" recording more typical of this style of black metal. The drums are of course rigid, but they're held in check by loud guitars, dense (though not exactly noticeable) bass, and a strong vocal presence that doesn't stretch too far to the foreground. I like the fact that everything is really crisp and clear though, as the vocal and guitar textures work very well together. The layout's pretty tactful. The band photo on the back of the booklet sort of ruins it because these guys have some of the most constipated "evil" facial expressions I've ever seen, not to mention the worst corpsepaint ever. But the cover art is cool, and the lyrics are presented in clean type over black backgrounds with sparse images of the demons that appear on the cover. There are tons of references to darkness, hell, evil, and evil hellish darkness in the lyrics, so I'm not going to bother going into detail there. It's all been done a million times before. And I mean, the same goes for the music in a sense. In no way whatsoever would I call this original. I've heard numerous bands that sound almost identical to this. However, I will say that Setherial has a good sound, exhibits strong songwriting, and I find this CD to be enjoyable. So I give them credit for pulling it off and making a good record out of it.
[Regain]
Running time - 43:32, Tracks: 9
[Notable tracks: Crimson Manifestation, ...of Suicide, Endtime Divine]
Regain Records - http://www.regainrecords.com
