The Iniquity Descent
The Human Apheresis

So, there are times when you look at an album cover and just think: “this has to be rubbish”. This is one of those covers, dark but without depth, without a sense of adventure and without the kind of feel you look for in an album cover. A poor cover doesn’t however necessarily mean a poor album but not being a black metal fan it is difficult to really muster an interest to play this album, but when has that ever stopped me? After all there is such music that I enjoy as well like the early works of Finntroll like the albums Midnattens Widunder and Jaktens Tid which I enjoyed for both the fun music and lyrics, the singer of this band sings for Finntroll today albeit I have never really heard him as I have not paid much attention Finntroll of late and have not really heard them since the acoustic EP whatever that was called. And neither have I ever heard the Lillmåns sing before now.

It sounds like typical black metal albeit it is said to have elements of death and heavy metal which I have actually a rather hard time understanding as I don’t hear any of those. The singer also sounds typical in the regard that he grunts and that it is completely impossible to make out a word he is saying. So for me in all regards this sounds like a typical black metal album, the sound is typical and it is not heavy or evil at all. There is not much in sense of variation on this album, it is very difficult to orientate oneself during the album as the songs are more or less alike. So one thing is for certain with this album and that is that you cannot really dislike stereotypes in order to enjoy this album. And the sound is kind of murky as well, not really the finely polished product of the modern rock/metal music but then again black metal music isn’t really about that, it is about being evil.

They are not really evil though and they are not really good either, unless of course you like the typical traditional black metal. It is just dull and dreary with no sense of drama and not the darkness that black metal is supposed to be about. It isn’t evil either as I said and it is not brutal although I bet some people will say that it is, the reviews I have read about this album (and they aren’t many) says that it is decent black metal but it lacks variation and seems only geared towards those who like stereotypical black metal. So I am not the only one with reservations but then again I am not really a fan of the genre either so I say that if you care for typical black metal with no variation you will like this but if you don’t like typical black metal it is bad.

Honestly, this album is bad, it offers nothing good at all really, at least not for anyone who really wants their music varied and actually creating something that hasn’t been done before or at least hasn’t been done a million times before. This is that, it boring and not really interesting at all, unless of course you enjoy stereotypical black metal, which I don’t.