Daemonarch, Hermeticum

Daemonarch, Hermeticum - Black metal dark-lords 'Moonspell' return to their "Under The Moonspell" era of sound combining their experience and developed musical ability from over the years, projecting the raw emotions of hatred and rage into their off-shoot band "Daemonarch". Fernando Ribeiro roars out a whole host of blasphemic and satanic lyrics and texts throughout the dark and macabre tracks. The four members of 'Daemonarch' are all members from the band 'Moonspell'. The line-up is as follows:

Fernando Ribeiro - Vocals

Ricardo Amorim - Guitars

Sergio Crestana - Bass

Pedro Paixao - Keyboards/samples

The drums are unfortunately just programmed drums, but they don't sound too bad on the album. The band have produced a far different sound from everything they have done through 'Moonspell' since their debut E.P., combining death with black metal in a thoroughly dark mixture. The vocals stay with a more aggressive sound, with Langsuyar using varied screams, shouts and rasps. In fact Langsuyar hardly uses his trademark clean voice at all within the album. The vocals are also built-up with layers, using a death metal-style rasping backing up a more black metal-style scream.

The tracklisting is as follows:

1. Lex Talionis

2. Of A Thousand Young

3. Corpus Hermeticum

4. Call From The Grave

5. Saniyaca

6. Nxie Angles

7. Lacuhus

8. The Seventh Daemonarch

9. Hymn To Lucifer

The CD was released in an impressive foldout digi-pak that includes some rather dark and ritualistic style pictures of the band. The debut album is a highly recommended death/black metal masterpiece which is well worth tracking down.