Blood of Kingu – Sun In The House of The Scorpion

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Ukraine’s Blood of Kingu don’t play live shows – it’s merely the one-man side project of Drudkh‘s Roman Saenko – but if it did, there would be corpse paint, animal skulls, and inverted crosses abound. Unlike his other, better band, Saenko uses Blood of Kingu as an outlet to play straight-up black metal. This wouldn’t be a problem if the music he composed for it was at all interesting. There’s plenty of blast beats, tremolo-picked riffs, and vocals that one can only imagine are incantations to the Dark One – hell, there’s even a gong – but there’s nothing to really sink one’s teeth into. When it’s slow, it’s supposed to be menacing, but it isn’t. When it’s fast, it’s supposed to make you bang your head, but it doesn’t. One imagines that Saenko started this band so he wouldn’t have to focus on the atmosphere as much as he does in Drudkh, but there should at least be some effort to create an atmosphere, and there really isn’t. And don’t even get this reviewer started on the horrible “black metal” song titles – all of which exceed five words, except for a cover of Beherit‘s Gate of Nanna. Sun In The House of The Scorpion is certainly competent for what it is. It has all the hallmarks of ’90s European black metal, and it doesn’t violate any of the cardinal laws born during the genre’s infancy. Unfortunately, that’s precisely where it goes wrong.

Written by Brad Sanders
More: 2010, Albums, Black Metal, Quick.Play Reviews, Blood of Kingu