Ελληνικά
Last Updated on 10:14 PM by Giorgos Tsekas
Genre: Black Metal / Atmospheric
Label: Deathhammer Records
Country: Cyprus
Year: 2016
On January 7th, the debut album of Temple of Evil, titled “The 7th Awakening” was released. The band’s members are Arkhon Sakrificer, Nekrocurse, Apethantos and Angelwhore, and if my translation of the members’ descriptions is correct, their participation is bass / vocals, guitar / keyboards, guitar and drums respectively. The descriptions as to the instruments are quite peculiar, like “Unholy Chants and 4-String Conjuration” for Arkhon Sakrificer, so any errors in “translating” that is, I believe, quite understandable. Both descriptions and the aliases of the members, and why not, the CD cover itself, take us to an earlier period of black metal. A more “theatrical” era when every choice the bands did was intended to create a complete illusion and of course to shock the fake and puritanical Christian societies.
Do they manage to stand the comparison to the behemoths of the genre’s older period? Besides, it takes more than mere theatrics to be worthy of the old scene. Their music is quite old-fashioned. From the beginning to end of the album they follow the old forms in both their brutal and their atmospheric parts, and are reminiscent of the early Greek black metal scene. Maybe the 90s are the new 80s, as a friend and editor of Metal Invader reasonably said and that is exactly the sound Temple of Evil remind me of. With better production of course, after all studio technology has advanced, but at their core they are a band full of influences of the genre, as it was in the 90s.
The CD’s artwork is good enough, whether we are talking about the cover, which directly clarifies the content of the album, or the pictures that accompany each song. Very beautiful style, different than the supposedly sophisticated yet soulless images that are generated on a computer.
They are not reinventing the wheel or fire, besides that’s not their purpose. They perform well enough, but the genre they have chosen may belong to a different era. In the end though, one would listen to this album because he wants to listen to this specific style, not because one would want to analyze new forms or new experimental motifs of any kind in black metal.
4/6
