Time Signature The flowers of evil...

Genre: black metal

The band is called Pact. The album is called "The Dragon Lineage of Satan". The cover art depicts the pope and a nun in chains with Satan in a dominant position above them. Now, if this does not spell Satanic black metal, then I do not know what does.

The production is quite raw, and might be a turn off to some who are not into the aesthetics of rawer black metal, but once you get past the production (of course, fans of filthy black metal will love the production from the get go), hopefully you will be able to enjoy the music itself. We are dealing with blastbeat-filled aggressive black metal oozing with evil and darkness from beginning to end - the vocals are harsh, the music appearing chaotic (bit it actually isn't) with its use of dissonance, tense harmonies and tremolo picking. So there is a lot of intensity there, which really is notable when Pact breaks into heavier more riff based passages, whose contrast to the more intense blasting passages works brilliantly.

Intense and aggressive, this is black metal as black as it comes, but, despite the raw production, Pact have managed to inject a good dose of atmosphere into their music, and what I really like about that is that they have achived that through their choice of (dis)harmonies and chords - that is, it is all in the music (with the exception of a dark and bizarre ceremonial passage in the end of 'Into Heaven's Night').

Filthy and dirty, yet atmospheric, and full of aggression, Pact's "The Dragon Lineage of Satan" should appeal to fans of raw, but expressive, black metal. Never has the word