Review Summary: The bottom line is that this album will appeal to those who are fans of Dimmu Borgir, Cradle of filth and the bands that play melodic black metal.
Black metal is a very diverse genre as it has been since its early inception. Such is a sub-genre called “Symphonic black metal” which fuses the raw untamed force of black metal with classical keyboards and orchestral elements. This genre is very intricate to start with, bands like Dimmu Borgir and Emperor have accomplished to make the right set of feel and flow, so basically this band “Diabolus Arcanium” set their foot into the mysterious realm of symphonic black metal with their debut album “Spellbound”, now let me get to the review and let us see how the band has fared.
To start off with the album begins with the orchestral “Inno arcanium” which is a typical album starter for most symphonic black metal bands, this piece of majestic work begins with haunting pianos and beautiful choirs which develops into something that melts your thoughts into the arcanium (as the title suggests). Next song “Spiritual entropy” hits fast like a hurricane with some amazing memorable string sections, the band has managed to make all the songs sound different from each other which is quite remarkable for a relatively new band. The album flows very well till the end with many memorable melodies in every song which sticks to your head even after the albums gets over, Frozen dreams is a track that is very emotional yet powerful with classical piano intro with booming choir sections. The band seems to experiment in their song structures which is very non-linear and there are a lot of tempo and time signature shifts throughout which flows in a very fluid way. The drums are pretty complex at times and hits extreme speeds, there could have been a guitar solo or two maybe. On the whole this album is a very good album. The bottom line is that this album will appeal to those who are fans of Dimmu Borgir, Cradle of filth and the bands that play melodic black metal.
