DEATHSPELL OMEGA — Infernal Battles (review)

DEATHSPELL OMEGA — Infernal Battles album cover Album · 2000 · Black Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
1.5/5 ·
Conor Fynes
'Infernal Battles' - Deathspell Omega (3/10)

The debut of this now legendary black metal act, Deathspell Omega has certainly come a long way from this. In more recent years, they have made some of the most haunting, challenging black metal ever made. Even on their second record 'Inquisitors Of Satan', Deathspell was playing an old school brand of black metal with some considerable proficiency. 'Infernal Battles' opens the band's career on a somewhat bleak note, and I do not mean that in a good way. Although nothing out of the ordinary for straightforward black metal, this is a very amateurish, poor sounding release, with inconsistent production, performance, and unremarkable songwriting. Although it certainly has its merits to it still, this is the only album in Deathspell Omega's catalog that I might label as 'bad'.

Musically speaking, 'Infernal Battles' is fairly average black metal, in the vein of bands like Mayhem. Of course, Deathspell Omega is coming a clean decade after those Norwegian heavyweights, so I cannot say much of the band in terms of innovation at this point. The music is filled with evil sounding chord progressions, tinny drums, and raspy vocals that sound garbled as hell, thanks to the low budget recording that the album has. Making the production worse is the fact that tracks 5-8 are actually the band's demo, 'Disciples Of The Ultimate Void'. Not a re-recording for the album, but an outright copy-and-paste of the demo onto here. The songwriting- which is very decent, although predictable- does not compensate for the total lack of tact the album has. Even at its best, 'Infernal Battles' still sounds like a garage production, but hearing it fluctuate so much makes for a pretty weak experience..

One positive thing I can mention about Deathspell Omega at this point is that even early on, they were very good musicians. This is an inherently untechnical sort of music that the band is playing, but they play it with a great intensity, and unlike many demos of this style that I have heard, there aren't slip-ups in the playing. Although this may be considered a full- length, it really does not feel as if Deathspell Omega's legitimate journey starts until the second album. This is generic, mediocre black metal with abysmal production values. Even so, it's a somewhat worthy venture for hardcore fans of the band, if only to see how much the band has progressed since their origin.
Share this review
more

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Metal Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

MMA TOP 5 Metal ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
Master of Puppets Thrash Metal
METALLICA
Buy this album from our partners
Paranoid Heavy Metal
BLACK SABBATH
Buy this album from our partners
Moving Pictures Hard Rock
RUSH
Buy this album from our partners
Powerslave NWoBHM
IRON MAIDEN
Buy this album from our partners
Rising Heavy Metal
RAINBOW
Buy this album from our partners

New Metal Artists

New Metal Releases

Human Rosin Melodic Metalcore
HATE BREEDER
Buy this album from MMA partners
Through The Hell Hardcore Punk
ENEMY 906
Buy this album from MMA partners
Lightmatter: Rebirth Deathcore
EARTHGAZER
Buy this album from MMA partners
Eye Of Horus (Lightmatter EP Pt. 2) Deathcore
EARTHGAZER
Buy this album from MMA partners
Galaxy888 (Lightmatter EP Pt. 1) Deathcore
EARTHGAZER
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Metal Online Videos

Agremorta - Adrocitas (Official Lyric Video)
AGREMORTA
Bosh66· 4 days ago
Agremorta - Ploratus Umbra (Official Lyric Video)
AGREMORTA
Bosh66· 4 days ago
Agremorta - Vertex Membrana (Official Lyric Video)
AGREMORTA
Bosh66· 4 days ago
HAIL SPIRIT NOIR - The Temple Of Curved Space (Official Track Stream)
HAIL SPIRIT NOIR
adg211288· 4 days ago
In Sulfur - The Gate (OFFICIAL VIDEO) 2022
IN SULFUR
Bosh66· 5 days ago
More videos

New MMA Metal Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Metal News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Follow us on Twitter Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed