There's a palpable dose of black metal in here, most notably in the vocals, which squeeze out the Hebrew lyrics like confessions extracted under torture. Imagine Mutilation Rites playing doom metal and you're most of the way there. This, along with a few bursts of blasting ("The Darkness Whispers In My Ear", "Zohamah") and some moments in "Emptiness" that remind me of Thantifaxath, already comprises all the black metal elements that are readily apparent, but it's enough to spice things up sufficiently. On the other end of the spectrum, "Black Cloud" is the most straightforward death metal track, mostly stomping along at a lumbering pace and boasting some surprisingly groovy riffs. It's the shortest song on here, which leads me to another aspect in which the album scores points with me: it's only half an hour long. That may sound like a back-handed compliment, but in a genre that seems fraught with overlong compositions that go nowhere, I find this very refreshing. It's the death doom equivalent of a quick fix, with plenty of killer and very little filler. - Toilet Ov Hell
