Review Summary: Vicious throwback black metal, and a promising semi-debut for the band
As stated in the summary, Legiones is a black metal band that emulates the classical second wave black metal style. In other words, Legiones sounds as if it was straight out of '93. As expected, the production quality is horrible, but if you're a true black metal fan you won't mind.
Unlike most modern black metal bands, Legiones is pure black metal, undiluted by trivial things such as melodies or ambience. No, Legiones is pure and simple hate and fury expressed in a musical fashion like black metal should be. Throughout the demo, there are no solos, no provocative melody lines, no clean vocals, nothing but tried and true tremolo picks and blast beats accentuated by horrid croaks that are full of rage and anger.
The guitar work of Legiones' demo is nothing original to the genre. The riffs are ferociously heavy, and of course played at frantic speeds. The guitar assault does not let up for the entirety of the album, continuing a steady and destructive pace throughout the roughly 15 minute demo. Although this kind of unabated fury usually quashes the bass guitar, Legiones suffer from no such problem simply because there is no bass! Legiones rhythm section is nothing but a molten injection of smoking' fast black metal riffs that will shear your face right off.
The drumming of Legiones' debut demo is quite promising. Although the blast beats do not parallel the insane speeds of veteran BM drummers such as Trym, the band's studio drummer, Vargon has noticeably above average skill. The drums also highlight the musical sections nicely, placing crash in strategic places that help the guitar riffs to swell and create a more in-depth sound. Also, Vargon's dual-handed snare rolls are devilishly fast and a treat for those that bother to listen for them.
Lyrically however, Legiones is very different from second wave black metal. While most BM bands tend to use vicious satanic imagery to push their anti-religious message across, Legiones uses actual bible verses in their lyrics. However, this by no means declares Legiones as a Christian band. I have been personally speaking with Ereland Holm, the band's guitariast and he gave me the band's stance on religion and christianity.
"First of all I can speak of the "grudge" behind our band. We are not just antichristian, but anti religion. We believe that religion has weakened mankind. I hate religion for what it has done, what the bible itself says, and what they are still doing.
From very early school, we were told that Christianity was the right thing, and people could end up in hell for there sins. And we were forced to believe.
One example: the catholic church want peoples to live in peace, but their crusades, and how they executed people is OK. It was in the name of their God. The avengeful God. "If you don't believe in me, I have the right to kill you". One part in the chapters of Ezekiel, God has created a beautiful woman. She want other men, and she becomes a prostitute. God does not like that...He gathers all the men that have been with her, and make them stone her, and at the end slice her up with their swords. This is what pisses me off. They never talk about this.
They only take out fragments of the bible, and of course then it's a great religion."
This is definitely a much more mature and unique take on anti-religion and not so ridiculously cliché as blatant Satanism, which in my opinion drags the genre down. Vocally, Legiones sounds a bit more like early blackened death metal, using grotesque croaks and growls instead of raw screams.
In the end, Legiones demo is a promising start for the band and available for listening on the band's MySpace page. If you are any fan of black metal, I advise that you give it a listen.
