Description

Limited double album with gatefold cover Back in the mid-nineties Ancient were on the cusp of attaining the status of such bands as Emperor and Mayhem due to the rave being created by their two releases; 1994’s Svartalvheim and 1996’s The Cainian Chronicles. Before the release of this album it was thought that it would be the one to solidify their standing in the black metal world, but no one could have predicted the raging turd that was about to be unleashed from the collective bowels of this band. Svartalvheim and The Cainian Chronicles were aggressive, guitar dominated efforts that were just raw enough to satisfy most diehard black metal fans, but this album was nothing like that. This album was full of gothic interludes, backing female vocals, keyboards, and generally everything that could ever be wrong with a black metal album. Of course they were immediately branded Cradle of Filth clones by the masses, but I couldn’t disagree more. To me the term clone means to replicate perfectly the original subject and that’s just not what happened here. This album is more the musical equivalent of showing a six year old the Mona Lisa and then asking him to recreate it with crayons; not a clone, just a sloppy, misguided interpretation of all the original’s elements. Musically we find the band trying its best to recreate the atmosphere of CoF with minimal success. They have the prerequisite clean guitar parts, the heavy mid-sections, the gothic keyboard interludes, the female ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’, and much like the six year old trying to interpret what made the original painting so great, Ancient fail miserably. This became the soundtrack to the demise of the band Track listing: 1. Malkavian Twilight 2. A Mad Blood Scenario 3. The Draining 4. Um Gonho Psycodelico 5. Sleeping Princess Of The Arges 6. Her Northern Majesty 7. Blackeyes 8. The Emerald Tablet 9. Willowthewisp 10. Neptune 11. 5 12. Hecate, My Love And Lust 13. Vampirize Natasha 14. Black Funeral