ILL OMEN — Spear of Salvation (review)

ILL OMEN — Spear of Salvation album cover EP · 2010 · Black Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
Vehemency
Since the first demo, Ill Omen has provided its trademark black metal in multiple demos in short time, and Spear of Salvation - the first EP - is very much in the same vein: buzzing, droney and dissonant guitar riffs are fired in the suffocating, deep dark atmosphere, with some whispery vocals on top. It all works well, but in the end, I already have the previous three demos and Spear of Salvation lacks the spark of something that would make it any better than its predecessors.

I am pretty sure that it’s the amount of material that makes me too deaf to the music that Spear of Salvation offers, but on the other hand, I really do enjoy the overall style and atmosphere of Ill Omen, so I don’t have much to nag about. Menacing atmosphere is indeed the key word because individual songs rarely pop out on Spear of Salvation, except perhaps ”Caverns of the Earth” with its epic main guitar riff, definitely one of the best tracks Ill Omen has created so far.

Spear of Salvation requires a fitting environment to indulge all that it has to offer: as a mere background music one might miss all the ambient details and nuances that are not easy to spot from the fuzzy, low fidelity production. This EP is a worthy, good release but does suffer from the similarity with the previous outputs. I hope the coming-up debut album fixes this and I can finally hear an Ill Omen masterpiece - I’m confident that there could be one.
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