Ah another new name despite having a previous album and an EP out. Pretty much an international band on the album line-up but, I think Germany based with its core members. Black metal. Kind of.
It opens with the sounds of running water and gentle acoustic and folk tinged guitar. It speaks more of vales and mythical forests than black metal as the whispered voice comes in. Sylvan sounds, swelling keyboards, calm. ‘Profanation On Command’ break that with a snarl but the guitar and riff come in and it honestly has more of an early Viking metal feel to it despite the obvious lyrical inclination, a swing and a little swagger to the guitar melody which brings to mind bands around the time of Mithotyn, Falkenbach and those legends. The drum sound on the snare is a bit dead and the production feels a bit flat too but not a killer issue really. ‘Dark Tower Or Gorgoroth’ is more in the basic black metal mould with a varnish of CoF rhythmic feel until the Bal Sagoth keyboards come in which raises it significantly for me.
I think after a couple of more songs that Illum Adora have a little more in common with Tolkein obsessives Summoning despite the lyrics seeming to be straightforward occult and satanic. At times their grasp of melodic runs and lines is wonderful and evocative of some mythic world and the vocals vary nicely to accentuate this, at others particularly when the keyboards are absent and they rely more on riff than melody they kind of fall back into a fairly indistinct black metal sound. The use of piano on ‘Tief Unten’ a slower sombre number is beautiful and the rising melodic riff very neat. Other times as on ‘Folter’ or ‘Messiah To Purgatory ‘ it gets a bit bogged down in drum battery and featureless often doomy if raw riffing.
Genuinely split about this album and tempted to say that the band might be too. When they play the more melodic, mythic style it has real promise just the satanic lyrics don’t entirely seem to fit. When they don’t the music is a little generic for me.
I think this is more intriguing than stunning. Moments of wonder, passages of routine. Not bad, just not entirely consistent for me.
(6/10 Gizmo)
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