Album Review: 1349- Demonoir

Heavy metal bands, of all established sub-genres, always run a risk of becoming redundant. This becomes particularly clear once a band has reached the third or fourth album. Developing a recognizable style is admirable, but there is a big difference between being consistent, and just being dull or redundant. On its latest album, Demonoir, 1349 manages to remain consistent, while dodging the possibility of becoming dull.

Many 1349 fans felt disappointed or indifferent about the band's last record, Revelations of the Black Flame, due to its experimentation. The new record does away with this in favor of a style reminiscent of earlier records such as Hellfire. Before even mentioning the musical aspects of the record, one realizes that 7 of the 13 tracks on the album are simply dark, ambient soundscapes. I myself like ambient-noise stuff like Earth and Sunn O))) anyway, so this wasn't an issue for me. However, the listener cannot help but wonder if the band needed to fill up the album with these tracks in order compensate for a lack of ideas. This worry mostly dissipates when listening to the 6 actual "songs" on the record, all of which are very good.

The record contains plenty of blast-beats and heavy riffs to satisfy most metal listeners. The record also has many unique arrangements to its credit as well, with dissonant guitar lines in front of well-placed double bass lines. The vocals are standard well-produced Black Metal material, with some whispering scratches to accommodate the usual screeching provided by vocalist, Ravn. I was surprised to hear some grainy robotic sounding vocals as well, which reminded me vaguely of Shagrath from Dimmu Borgir. (If you're unsure of what I'm referring to, listen to the beginning of Puritania, the comparison isn't too obvious, but it just caught me off guard on the albums second track Atomic Chapel).

The best songs on the record are clearly Atomic Chapel and Devil of the Desert. Chapel has roaring blast-beats and ferocious vocals, but also has some slower stop-and-go moments that dramatize the song in a way that makes it more compelling and interesting. Devil is my favorite song on the record. The song keeps the listener interested through the entire track with well constructed instrumentation and some genuinely great riffs. The later portion of the song also contains more dirge-like portion that quickly descends back into a maelstrom of blast-beats and the pummeling thrashings of the song's chorus. Check out the song's piano outro as well.

Those two picks aside, also look out for the surprising guitar solo in Psalm 7:77, completely unexpected.

More actual "songs" might have been nice, but otherwise this record scores a 7/10. Definitely worth listening to.