Demoncy - Enthroned Is the Night

Demoncy are a great band. They were one of the very first black metallers and created stuff that was far filthier and more primal than anything Darkthrone was doing at the time. And, of course, any black metal fan worth their salt knows the uncompromising dark masterpiece Joined In Darkness. The band took a bit of a turn on the next album, Empire of the Fallen Angel, and was criticized for trading their brute evil for a more generic form of black metal with actual chord progressions and song structures. This was true, but I personally think they didn’t do such a bad job of that style. Anyway, after that album mainman Ixithra couldn’t handle any further progression into the mainstream and demonstrated his anger by destroying all the recordings of the new album in progress and sacking off all his bandmates. After a 9 year recluse, Demoncy remain a one-man-band, and Ixithra has brought us the new album Enthroned is the Night.

You’ll be glad to hear that Demoncy have definitely regressed a bit on this recording, but it’s possible that Ixithra tried too hard to do this and ended up making something that was less gruelingly evil than his intentions. It is definitely not the nasty, minimalist dirges of Joined In Darkness (production’s too good, for one thing), but it does lean much more on the side of early Demoncy than the last album. There is melody here, but it is dirty, evil melody, and this is certainly not melodic black metal. There is no stray from the thick wall of sound outside the droning filler tracks, but you will notice is has a very polished tone to it when compared with 90s Demoncy, and it sometimes calls to mind a death metal sound. There is too much blastbeating, but some of these riffs could easily be at home on an old school DM track.  This was something Demoncy always previously managed to avoid despite having retardedly downtuned guitars. None of this changes the fact that some of these riffs are delightfully destructive (see standout tracks), and the songwriting is actually pretty good…. But wait. They question is, why is there any songwriting on a Demoncy album?

In short: You can see this is a good album, and if this were a different band, I might’ve thought it was pretty punishing, but it does not really touch on the twisted depravity of Demoncy’s classics, it only gives it a good shot.

Standout tracks: Winds of Plague, The Arcane Aristocracy

Score: 7.0