Denial of God - The Horrors of Satan (2006)

Denmark's Denial of God is a band I always felt I should have gelled with, but never quite got there. They have amazing cover artwork on their albums, clear occult/horror themes to all their releases, and they're frankly one of the most seasoned black metal bands out of that entire scene, having a long legacy of shorter EP releases before they ever even dropped this debut full-length, The Horrors of Satan, in 2006. They seem to feed a more theatrical vibe than many of their peers, almost like a King Diamond playing purely in the black metal realm, and this does translate onto their recordings, with a number of intro or interlude pieces like "The Witch - Now a Restless Spirit" which is a whispered narrative over an acoustic guitar. Synths, down-tuned vocal chants, all manner of embellishments give this debut a classic, creepy Gothic horror feeling.

The material here is solid if not totally impressive, aesthetically comparable to a lot of the 90s Scandinavian black metal that surrounded them on their earlier works. There's more melody than you'd think, in tunes like "The Curse of the Witch", which have some NWOBM or German heavy metal elements coursing through the tremolo picked riff choices. However, most of the patterns are pretty much standard stuff, just catchy enough to carry you along the thrust of the blasted drums and snarls, an occasionally eerie melody peaking above the ordeal (as in "The Book of Ouifael"). The beats are fast as hell with loads of fills, and the band does dynamically shift around so that the tracks never get boring, with segues like bells and the aforementioned chants or narrative to give it all a dark storybook feel. There's one tracks here, "The Iron Gibbet", that clocks in at over 11 minutes of slower black metal, and I don't know that this one quite earns its length, because they're aren't a lot of interesting moments or surprises. The epic titular closer is nearly 13 minutes, and this one is faster paced in general as has a lot stickier riffs and dynamics.

It's a little imbalanced, and probably about 20 minutes too long (almost an hour total), but The Horrors of Satan is certainly worthwhile to revisit. It's got a raw, sinister atmosphere to it created through the throwback mix of guitars and the horror trappings, gruesome vocals, and it's certainly the most savage of  the three full length albums although I can't speak for all the EPs. That said, the style here is actually carried out across the rest of their catalogue, maybe a little cleaner in production, doomier or more progressive. I got a little bored with the sophomore, Death and the Beyond, but this debut is more vital and exciting, a decent time if you're into the more traditional Satanic black metal of the 90s but with a little more cinematic/horror appeal. Haunted castles, witches dancing around bonfires, werewolves, old black & white horror films, sacrifices, Denial of God has your back on this one, it just needed an edit or two for when it became a little redundant.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10]

https://denialofgod.bandcamp.com/music

Denial of God - Death and the Beyond (2012)

Considering their 21 year history, Danes Denial of God have had a rather quiet career, producing at first a long series of EPs through the 90s that eventually led up to some more substantial works in recent times. Death and the Beyond is only the band's second full-length album, but I've got to admit that I do enjoy the atmosphere and concept the band is attempting to manifest, if not so much the songwriting and execution. Like many bands of their ilk, there is the fascination with Satan and the occult, but they attempt to capture more of a supernatural horror feel through the album that brings about comparisons to acts like Mortuary Drape, Mercyful Fate, and King Diamond, even though the musical manifestation is quite different.

Quite liked the cover on this album, simple yet colorful and elegant, and the Gothic piano/vocal intro "Veni Spiritus" led me to believe that this would be quite a lot more atmospheric than it turned out. The band does implement pianos, synthesizers, and cleaner guitars to help break out the meatier riffing, but in general they play in a fairly minimal, subdued brand of black metal with a balance of slower, Celtic Frost-inspired grooves like you'll hear in "Funeral" and mid-paced, flowing rhythms with a hint of thrash ("The Cursed Chamber"). The production on the record is quite clean, especially the drums and guitar tone, so it makes for a smoother transition to the less metallic segues strewn about the track list, but it often leeches some of the riffs from a potential, rawer power that might have benefited their general lack of nuance and aggression. That said, Denial of God are no strangers to variation: they are not constantly repeating themselves here, fully capable of launching into a blasted rhythm with tremolo guitars in a total 90s fashion ("Behind the Coffin's Lid", the faster segments of "Black Dethe") or meting out an incorporeal interlude ("Spectral Lights").

The vocals are nothing out of the ordinary, almost like a thicker Satyr rasp but with a few deviations into the Gothic, solemn narrative I hinted at before. Death and the Beyond does suffer from some bloat, with a number of tunes exceeding 9 minutes and the grand finale, "Pendulum Swings" hitting 15. If the songs were actually creepier, or at least featured more malevolent passages interspersed with the dryer fare, then this would be easier to ingest, but too often here I felt that the guitars were uninspired and the little key melodies, which were often used to create a morbid lullaby, just went nowhere. Ultimately, my frustration with this album stemmed from the fact that, while I dig what the Danes are trying to achieve, the actual music does not live up to the breathtaking, ghostly theme, and I found myself admiring the more spacious, atmospheric segues as in "Bones turn to Dust" than the actual metal content. This is by no means an unpleasant or bad record, but it doesn't possess the thrills and chills I expected when looking upon it.

Verdict: Indifference [6.5/10]

http://www.denialofgod.net/