Review Summary: Hail Satan et cetera...
I’m not going to dance around it: I don’t like Inquisition.
There are several things that are wrong with this band and I think those aspects can be applied not only to 'Magnificent Glorification of Lucifer' but, to a good extent, to the other albums of this band (I admit I don’t know their entire discography but I assume they never had a major stylistic change. If I am wrong and someone wants to suggest some different albums of theirs I’ll be happy to listen to that). Il try to be organized and do a list of the more problematic aspects of this album and more generally of this band.
1. The sound
I know, a big part of the black metal fanbase really appreciates the lo-fi aspect of the recording. And it’s a thing that, though I can’t really understand, I can tollerate. If a band has some really good Ideas, i can get passed a bad sound engineering, but here it really sounds deliberate. There are only 2 instruments plus the voice in here, and I really can't decide what sounds worse. And what’s astonishing is that this isn’t an early 90’s recording of an emerging band. This is their third official record and it was made in 2004! If you want to understand how bad of a sound this is by 2004 standards, just listen to the first minute of this record and then listen to the beginning of Behemoth’s Demigod, recorded the same year.
2. The voice
What the hell is Dagon doing at the microphone? I really don’t get it. It doesn’t sound like anything, it’s like a weird nasal gargle. He constantly sounds like he has something stuck in his throat. I read a little bit of fan reviews and apparently his vocal style is supposed to sound dark and sinister, I only find it childish and as “spooky” as a Scooby-Doo villain. I somewhat understand where he’s trying to go with it in the slower ritual-like songs like 'Eternal Loyalty to our Lord Satan', which is one of the songs I enjoyed the most on the album, but this vocal style really fails to fit in the more aggressive song. This style of voice brings me to another section of this review...
3. the innovation
In my search for a reason why fans of Inquisition like this band, I’ve often stumbled into sentences like “their innovative style on chant” or “the unique drum technique”. There’s a general understanding of Inquisition as having some avant-garde / experimental techniques. I’m not sure about that, I really think that the uniqueness of some features of this band are the result of a lack of technique rather than a genuine research for new sounds. There is no sign in the entire album of a research to push the genre forward in any aspect. The only thing that differs in the drumming style is that Incubus is not really good at it (which is not so innovative in black metal after all...). And I would believe that Dagon's singing style was an experiment only if he used it in different ways based on the contest of the song, but this never happens: as soon as he starts playing guitar, he also starts with his same annoying screaming... The only actual part of the album which displays some kind of experimentation is the hidden track (is it technically part of the album? Yeah why not?!). I must say that I think the hidden track is quite a highlight and perhaps in some parts the best sounding moment of the album, but even here I think Inquisition shows how little they can do with their experiments, because avant-garde music is not just making some random things. Random experiment can be a part of the research but this must be followed by reflection and elaboration of the results.
But enough with the philosophical implications of avant-garde music! Let’s get to the final point of the review!
4. Hail Satan!
I know, i know... I can’t be mad at a black metal band for using satanic themes, and I’m not. I always found this kind of themes childish and not scary at all. But... there is a way to write good satanic lyrics. I’ve already quoted Behemoth before so i’ll stick with them here as they fit well. If you listen to the Satanist’s lyrics you can hear that they’ve done their research. I don't want to say that you have to know Latin to write good black metal, but if you want this topic to sound scary, you have to have it related to something sounding ancient, great and powerful. This majestic sense of some ancient power that could be brought back from the underground with a mystical ritual is what could be scary about Satanism. Inquisition's lyrics just remind me of the Mountain Goat’s “the best ever death metal band out of Denton”, It sounds like some children screaming Hail Satan and rollin their eyes, that could perhaps scare your religious granny but nothing more than that.
And that’s all I think. I know a lot of the things I can’t stand about Inquisition's Music is exactly the reason why others like them... And I guess if you're really into black metal you could have a good time listening to this. I personally think I’ll never listen to them again.
I have to go now, this made me want to listen to Mgla.
