Limbonic Art – “Moon in the Scorpio” and “In Abhorrence, Dementia”

So what we have here is a symphonic black metal band that also happens to be relatively obscure compared to their well known contemparies Emperor, or the blackened symphonic traditional gothic what the hell metal of Cradle of Filth or Dimmu Borgir.

On their debut album (Moon in the Scorpio), the songs are extremely lengthy, and intentionally repetitive. This album is graced with a thick, “dank” production, where the guitars fade into the background (although they remain fairly discernable), and the keyboards are prominent. Oddly enough, this one reminds me not so much of bands like Emperor and Moonspell (their early stuff), but a symphonic take on the droning, ambient “Vikingligr Veldi” by Enslaved, another album with long songs built on repetition, relying on ambience to convey moods and such. It’s worth noting that despite the wall of sound, this isn’t exactly what I would call aggressive. Even when the blastbeats are rushing past, and Daemon is shrieking about death, this is relatively sedate compared to, let’s say, a grindcore record. The compositions are less minimalistic than the raw, degraded materials that must’ve inspired it (Darkthrone and Burzum and such), but the overall effect is the same.

On the other hand, the album’s successor, “In Abhorrence Dementia” is substantially different in sound and compositional approach. One will notice the cleaner production, the overall increased speed, the slightly shorter songs (on average), and so forth. The guitars are brought further up in the mix, and the riffs they play are more complex, and greater in number. One odd thing I noticed about the guitar parts was the presence of a few “groovy chug” riffs not unlike what a … groove metal (whoever thought up that genre name can’t have been very smart) might come up with between riffs. There’s also some bits that sound more like a typical symphonic black metal band, and so forth. It’s hard to say, but if you ask me, this sounds more “normal” than its predecessor. It showcases improved musicianship and compositions, but it lacks the atmospheric prowness of its predecessor (or so I think). It boils down to whether the listener wants an atmospheric record, or what actually turns out to be an experimental one.

At this point, the band’s evolution seems to be loosely paralleling that of Emperor, with the attempts to show off greater musical and compositional virtuosity on the second album at the expense of certain elements that made their debut what it was. I’ve heard that the band’s next two albums (Epitome of Illusions and Ad Noctum) strip down the symphonic elements in favor of a more typical raw black metal sound, though.