Limbonic Art – Phantasmagoria

site | label | buy

Symphonic black metal, as a whole, is a laughing stock of a subgenre in the world of metal. Emperor more or less invented it on In The Nightside Eclipse, Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir popularized it with The Principle of Evil Made Flesh and Enthrone Darkness Triumphant, respectively, and hundreds upon hundreds of bands since with access to Casio keyboards, computer recording software, and a shrieking timbre have driven the genre into the ground, miles beyond respectability. Norway’s Limbonic Art have a somewhat legitimate claim to be making this kind of music; they formed in 1993 and Emperor guitarist Samoth himself signed them in 1996. Now on their seventh full-length – albeit their first as a one-man project, only founding member Daemon remains – the band attempts to show that as early progenitors on the scene, their take on the sound is still relevant. Unfortunately, the result is mostly failure. After an intro track that pairs faux-spooky horror movie keyboards with an exercise in the always-exhilirating art of black metal spoken word, the album kicks into gear with its first of many synthesizer riffs. The first several tracks are embarrassing, rife with over-the-top theatrical symphonic parts and basement-fi screamed vocals singing lyrics about darkness and devils. As the album goes along, though, Daemon uses fewer and fewer keyboards, adds more and more blastbeats, and the album gets more and more bearable. By the time the closing one-two punch of eight-minute tracks A Black Sphere of Serenity and Astral Projection rolls around, the album has finally kicked into a groove of quality old-school black metal with new-school production, a blistering marriage of Mayhem and Lightning Swords of Death. And then the album ends. Phantasmagoria is a bizarrely bipolar little album: downright awful at times, transcendent at others, walking a winding path between them the rest of it. At the end of the day, this is still an hour of symphonic black metal, and therefore an hour better spent listening to something else – perhaps Emperor.

Written by Brad Sanders
More: 2010, Albums, Black Metal, Quick.Play Reviews, Limbonic Art