By Alex Montgomery
So, this is essentially your standard second wave black metal. It flirts with some experimental ideas but without really committing, and the more orthodox elements aren’t really executed uniquely enough to carry the album.
That’s the best summary I can think of for Lunar Chalice’s debut full length after mulling this opening paragraph in my mind for a while. Maybe it’s just because I was expecting something more esoteric based on the cover art of a wizard trapped in a D20 and a title lifted from your uncle’s ‘70s fantasy paperback collection.
However, I get the sense that Lunar Chalice have the potential to let loose with creative riffing but have shackled themselves to the “old school black metal” ethos that leads to a lot of very Darkthrone and Immortal redux sounding sections.
The best evidence I have for this would be the first real song, ‘Calix Cum Velum’, which I find to be my personal favourite because it displays really dynamic and winding riffing structure combined with some really cool clean vocals that remind me of Bathushka.
Unfortunately, the kicker comes in when the rest of the album doesn’t really go anywhere else for 32 minutes. You still get the dynamic sections and moments of flair, but they don’t feel that different from those in ‘CCV’ and they come with more riffs that just sort of sound like ‘Battles In The North’.
‘Transcendentia’ is an album that shows a band with the potential to really go somewhere if they can learn to embrace that little voice in their head that sounds like Danny DeVito telling them to get weird with it (it worked for VoiVod, right?)
One area I would single out for improvement in particular is the drumming. It does its job of keeping in rhythm and the kit is well produced but the drummer doesn’t employ too many different beats beyond stock double kick and blast beats that don’t help with the monotonous feeling dragging down the good parts here (and there are quite a few good parts don’t get me wrong.)
- ‘Transcendentia: The Shadow Pilgrimage’ is out now. You can get your copy HERE.
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