Time Signature Mother of abominations...

Genre: black metal

This release makes me appreciate that I am not really an expert in black metal. It has received some negative, and even scathing, reviews criticizing it for being a lame and boring and much too predictable modern black metal release and for having a much too polished sound. I attribute my non-negative experience of this album to my lack of expertise in black metal.

I agree that the production is polished and defined, but that's not necessarily a bad thing to me, because it allows me to hear everything that is going on misucally, but, of course, it also sacrifices a lot of atmosphere.

The riffage is often a combination of aggressive and primitive onestring patterns and slightly odd and mildly dissonant chords, while the drumming is aggresive and fast and quasi-technical, making use of blasbeats and fast double bass drums. This may be bland run-of-the-mill modern black metal to the experts, but I have no problems with it, which can be taken to be an indicator that this release would be a good entrypoint into the genre for those who are interested but not ready for the "real thing" yet.

There are a lot of cheesy elements on this album, most of which consist of spoken word - in a processed voice, to make it sound more demonic, I presume - accompanied a by pseudo-atmospheric musical backdrop, and I am not a big fan of the vocal style itself, although I appreciate that the vocal delivery ensures clarity of the lyrics.

Personally, I do not think this is a bad release at all, but this may be because of my ignorance of what "true" black metal should sound like.... on the other hand, I don't give a fuck about what's "true" or "false".

Vehemency Thornium’s third full-length, Fides Luciferius, provides disappointingly generic and predictable modern black metal. Crystal clear production (the drum sound being a nominee for the lamest drum production of the year with its incredibly dull triggers played a million beats a minute), forgettable evil riffs, some latin and pseudo-occultish song titles such as ”I Am Perfection” and ”I Am a God” - this is almost everything that Fides Luciferius has to offer, I am afraid.

The band does incorporate some interesting ideas into their otherwise sterile black metal: acoustic guitars are rather surprising to hear in ”Son of the Dragon” and ”Qliphothic Raptures” for example and the title track is a very enjoyable, atmospheric track that goes further from the dominant ’blast beat rapidity meets some technical elements’ pattern.

Fides Luciferius has indeed its moments but they are way too infrequent in the midst of a 60-minute album that is otherwise stuck in its tame and unpredictable music, both sound and composition-wise. After hearing so many albums like Fides Luciferius, it makes me really wonder where is the audacity to produce something more, well, audacious music. If you want your evil black metal in as plastic form as possible and in a safe package, Fides Luciferius might be an appropriate release - otherwise I can’t name many reasons to grab this album.