Lord Belial assaults or speakers once again, and we all happy for it of course. They continue the trademark blackened death metal stylings that have gotten so much good press over the years. That should continue here because this is a good album. Imagine a more bass heavy Dissection with the scales leaning a bit more to the death side. The beginning of “Trumpets of Doom” cements this as it is impossible not to think of the classic “Thorns of Crimson Death” upon hearing the main riff. However they also worked in a nice ambient keyboard part that would normally agitate me but here it worked quite nicely. The bass being as high in the mix as it is seems to be an anomaly for this style of music but it works very well here. The vocals vacillate between a high rasp and some lower growling, both of which are timed perfectly. I prefer the faster material but they certainly hold their own when they decide to slow things down a bit.Sadly once they slow things down they rarely rev them back up which leads to the back half of the album dragging a bit. It’s not devoid of intensity as they throw in a couple of solos borrowed from Trey Azagthoth to liven things up. Sadly, after the song “Inexorable Revolution” the album just loses steam. Part of this can be attributed to the drumming which is very good but lacks creativity. It’s mostly the same patterns over and over again. The songs also slow down as the album goes on and it loses intensity. This is still a good record but it could be truly great if they managed to keep up the fire they had on the first four songs for the length of the album.

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