Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
early orchestral death/black metal hybrid, February 8, 2003
This is the reissue of the hard-to-find imported album originally released in 1995. For newcomers, Bal Sagoth is a British band that commits itself to exploring fantasy with witches, warriors, wizards and the like. They're LOADED with imaginative imagery and have very elaborate songwriting that is uncommon for the genre of black/death metal. This album was an incredible debut for the darker side of metal, and was the first album I heard by the band which immediately turned me on to seeking more of their future works. A little heavier and rougher than the future albums, the vocals on this album range from guttural death (unfound on later releases) to black metal rasping, to the low James Earl Jones voice which became more of a signature for the band in their following albums. With the exceptions of the title track and the final track, the keyboards are a little darker and more maniacal than the later albums which sport a prettier, majestic sound. The guitar riffing on this album is also a little more akin to death metal...the rhythm guitars are low-tuned and sporadically it's chunk, chunk, chunk, but still catchy and well integrated into the song structure. Lyrically, the songs on this album are more like conventional song lyrics with rhymes and stanzas instead of staight-out epic storytelling. I think this album currently stands as Bal Sagoth's most different endeavor b/c "Starfire burning..." refined the signatures which were then elaborated into prettier keyboards with sudden speed bursts. Structural highpoints of "Black Moon..." are the title track (still one of my favorite songs ever) "Spellcraft and Moonfire", and the last song "Into Silent Chambers..." which has to be one of the greatest finales to any heavy metal album... So should you buy the album? Hell yes! Good roar and grind for the unquiet mind.
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2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
not yet Bal Sagoth, March 7, 2004
By A Customer
This early album points out the flaws in the Bal Sagoth approach, most of which they have corrected to a large degree in later albums, but not yet quite to the degree that they should. First, this is a true black metal album, the only one Bal Sagoth ever created. That means the following: hideously ugly screaming vocals, lousy production, and a dull, droning guitar sound backed by keyboards. In later albums, the band realized that they are a keyboard band with guitars, not vice versa, and moved the main themes to the keyboards. This is exactly what they should have done, but it would be even nicer if they would stop pretending to be black metal at all and go with a higher, cleaner guitar sound, and send the synthesized trumphets all the way to the front of the mix, all the time. Also, Byron's malevolent narrator voice improved dramatically after this album, and he toned down the death metal squawking. Again, a good move, but it would be even better if he would just eliminate the black metal junk altogether and replace it with some melodic choral vocals, in the Therion style, for example. Third, this album does at least have something closer to traditional song structures. This is the only area in which Bal Sagoth has gone backwards. Later albums are just so heavy on the "concept album" side that the songs make no sense without reading the lyric booklet, and very little sense even if you do. Bal Sagoth needs to grow up and realize what they are: an evil version of Rhapsody. As soon as they do so, they will skyrocket in popularity, because as Rhapsody has shown, there's a hardcore fan base out there for that kind of music and the fantasy genre in general. After all, who has sold more records: Iron Maiden or Cradle of Filth? Which movies are more popular, vampire flicks or Conan and Lord of the Rings? Black metal is just the European version of rap: an excuse for no-talents with some phony ideas of rebellion (in thier case, Satanic and vampiric) to pretend they're musicians and talk (or screech) their way through lousy excuses for songs. Bal Sagoth is better than that. They're a true fantasy-soundtrack-metal band, with the sole exception of Luca Turilli and crew, the most talented out there. (However, Byron doesn't have to go out and hire Saruman, Christopher Lee, to do his narration for him, because he sounds like Lord Sauron himself!) This record is of interest only to hardcore fans, to show what this band's roots are, and exactly why they need to abandon those roots and become what they can be, what they truly are, if only they would abandon the whole cult-band thing and take the next step up towards greatness. In summary: more symphonic elements, more catchy, upbeat guitar sound and riffs, add melodic choirs if not even some clean vocals, and move a little closer to traditional songwriting formats. As soon as they do this, they'll lose a few hundred black-metal goofball fans who will call them sellouts, and add about fifty thousand new fans who actually know good music when they hear it. So don't support this album, especially if you're new to this band. Get their latest, Atlantis Ascendant. That's more like it.
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by Bal-Sagoth 
