Diabolical Principles - Manifesto of Death (2014)

Diabolical Principles went largely unnoticed on their first album, Beyond the Horizon, which was a solid slab of semi-symphonic black metal that possessed at least some hints at greatness, but at the same time did not distinguish itself as much or as often as a number of the band's Hellenic forebears and contemporaries, so it wound up in the slush pile of so many European bands chasing the dream that was already captured and flogged nearly to death in the 1990s. However, it deserved better, and the group remained semi active in the intervening years it took to present their sophomore, Manifesto of Death, which is out through Kristallblut Records of Germany, a relatively new imprint with a couple years behind it.

Unfortunately, Manifesto of Death just doesn't come across as if a half-decade of inspiration was dispensed in its creation, and suffers from a series of fairly banal chord progressions and tremolo picked melodies that wind around on themselves without ever escaping into an exciting, memorable string of notes. The style hasn't exactly changed...they specialize in mid-paced black metal which feels like a mash up of the 90s tradition of Northern Europe with a few of the grandiose harmonic elements attributed to countrymen like Rotting Christ (especially Thy Mighty Contract-era), but the problem here is that the songs rarely seem to proceed in a compelling direction. They'll cut out most of the percussion and insert some more contemplative passage, but then when the full band picks back up it just doesn't capitalize on any inertia that it might have benefited from. Performances are all around solid, and I liked the fluid, audible bass playing which gave a richness to the mix of the disc, and yet it's just not enough to cultivate a 'second rate at best' vibe even at its most prized moments.

That's not to say it's entirely void of variation, since the band wisely switches up the tempo from mid-paced romps bristling with more dissonant chords, to majestic river-flow tempos and then the requisite blasting passages. The down side is that the uninspired feeling to the record seems to be equally distributed among all three. The rasping voice of the vocalist is really average, with no syllabic patterns of note and not a lot of menace by the obvious atonality of its nature in this genre. Lyrics are adequate for the style, but half a string of cliched lines you've read elsewhere. Some of the weird synth tones used in tunes like "The Passage" carry a retro-futurist sensibility that, while not uncommon in cheesy earlier black metal/ambient, don't do much of a service to the narrative of fell glory that the guitar progressions strive towards. But on the other hand, when the Principles are aligned strictly with creating a haunting soundscape, as in "Cosmic Void", I think they're pretty successful at conjuring a dark ambient immersion, to the point that I wished for more of that and less of the predictable rhythm guitars.

On the whole, not a terrible record, but what might have been a chance at taking the promising foundations of their debut into a new realm of possibility, has instead sputtered out like a dead engine churning recycled fumes and tropes that simply cannot survive against the wealth of better execution or more innovative ideas found in the genre as a whole. I didn't feel as if the Greeks had rewritten the script of Beyond the Horizon, but that album was just superior in its execution. If you're just looking to fill the background space with any old slightly atmospheric black metal, then Manifesto of Death should suffice, and again, I liked their synth-ambient future-scape stuff when it goes on a solitaire sojourn, but the album does suffer from an obligatory feeling, as if the musicians were not incredibly inspired themselves when putting it together. Not lazy, but not sufficiently passionate either.

Verdict: Indifference [5.75/10]

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Diabolical Principles - Beyond the Horizon (2009)

2009 marked a year in which several obscure fixtures of the Hellenic underground would 'officially' launch their other projects upon indie labels. That's not to say that these were all new bands, for example this Diabolical Principles project was around before the turn of the 21st century, but until about this time they were nothing more than a few demos and footnotes. Fascinatingly, I actually find that several of these acts are superior to those that spawned them, which holds true for this band, involving members of Mortuus Caelum, Burial Hordes, Unholy Ritual, Obsecration and a long list of Greek extreme metal acts. Beyond the Horizon might take some getting used to, due to the fact that it's production feels a little too skewed towards the symphonic keyboards, but I actually found its blend of atmospherics and primal, black substrate much to my liking.

This isn't the sort of 'symphonic' black metal that comprises intricate swells of strings and horns, more of a dull and numbing, cold and blatant use of minimalistic keyboard lines that are rather loud against the rambling rasp and streaming tremolo melodies of front man Gareth. I also can't consider it highly unique, as there's a pretty stock Scandinavian subtext to how the guitars and synth lines are composed. But as far as transporting me to a shadowed night-realm of grandeur, Beyond the Horizon does the trick ably, through both its frenzied, forward compositions like "Might Though is Sadness" and "The Legions Revival (The 3rd Era)" and the slower, surefooted majesty of "Journey Into Infinity" or "Darkness". There are a few sequences throughout the album in which the band becomes more complex in orchestration, using light, synthesized strings, as in the intro "Passage to a New Dimension" which is very well developed, or deep in the depths of "Might Though is Sadness", but in general it's the crude guitar tone and narrow palette of pads that give this its charm.

Unfortunately, an album like this one so often seems to slip straight past the audience that would appreciate it. With such an enormous wealth of symphonic European black metal out there, it is difficult for Beyond the Horizon to stake its own ground. The production here does not rival the big league chew of Dimmu Borgir and Emperor, and there are no flashes of indulgent excess or showing off to be had. This is not a 'freakout' album by any means, it simply ebbs along and assimilates the listener into its withered limbs. Many would undoubtedly be turned away by the perceived imbalance of keys to guitars, but I take exception here due to the soothing and eerie majesty and malevolence the technique creates. There are few outstanding guitar riffs on the album, nor are the vocals exceptional, but all told it's a nice twist on the mid-90s Scandinavian black metal aesthetic that bands like Ancient and Emperor hurled into the stratosphere.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10]

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