Lux Divina – From the Tomb to Nature’s Blood

Erik T — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:00:14 +0000

There’s a lot to like from the debut of Barcelona’s Pagan metal act Lux Divina. It’s a well produced black metal record full of foresty, heathen pride and regal pagan grandiosity as well as trademark melodic black metal trappings.

Versed metal heads will detect the immediate influence of Borknagar and Vintersorg as well as early In The Woods (HEart of the Ages), notably in the vocals of Norax who amid his typical black metal shrieks delivers a very operatic Garm/Andread Hedlund styled clean croon. And while I actually enjoyed his clean vocals, there will be many that will think he’s overdoing it a bit, and his Spanish cadence and accent does not help (i.e. “Forgotten Divinity (Deletrix) Part I”, “Praised Hymn to the Horned God”, “Serpent’s Philosophy”). Personally, I thought they added warmth and a little character.

Amid the melodic tremolo picked jaunts, there are the usual injections of acoustic, folky ambience, but it’s all well balanced as the music delivers plenty of solid riffs and amicable blackened intensity. From the aforementioned “Forgotten Divinity (Deletrix) Part I”, standout “The Mother Nature’s Tomb” and the later stages of the album like “Black Goddess’ Mountains” and “To Darkened Catacombs” all show the bands grasp of melding woody ferocity and an organic nod to mother nature (“Naturalistic Cults”) into an enjoyable, if hardly groundbreaking effort.

Zargof – Departure for the Cosmic Twilight

Erik T — Sat, 12 Jun 2004 00:32:19 +0000

Here is some pretty nice early 90’s styled symphonic but primal black metal that hails from Brazil but sounds like it came from the mountains of Norway.With a sound and tone similar to very early Emperor, but less complex or very early Dimmu Borgir, Zargof weave and epic astral tapestry of raw but still grandiose black metal. Complete with impressive intro (“For The Spiritual Redemption”) and outro (“The Prophecy Of Eternity”) Zargof’s delivery of their lengthy full tracks is very good; synth laden, sweeping yet majestically grim. The guitars buzz with untouched rawness and Druckgeister has a simple, effective rasp, free from spoken words of clean segues.

The standout title track and “… And The Halls Of The Whisperer Nocturnal Voices” deliver pretty much classic styled mix of ravaging blasts and controlled moments of majesty courtesy of keyboardist Freyr Gopul Leipt whose ivory tinkering is very reminiscent of Stian Aarstad (Dimmu Borgir 1993-97); simple yet epic.

A pretty nice little find here and I hope a full length is forthcoming.

Ars Magna Recordings – Teeth of the Divine

Lux Divina – From the Tomb to Nature’s Blood

Zargof – Departure for the Cosmic Twilight