Review Summary: "Trve cvlt" black metal that the underground cult-creatures will enjoy, but definitely not for ALL metalheads.
One privilege to living in Kelso, Washington State, is that I'm not far from Portland and I can always count on their little hipster record stores to provide me with metal I haven't (and most people) heard. My first trip there brought me my first CD to my metal collection (besides the Metallica Black Album I've owned since the sixth grade): "Infernal Pandemonio" by Gottlos. This was also an introduction album for me as far as "trve black metal" goes. Sure, I did already listen to Bathory, Mayhem, and (old) Dimmu Borgir, but those are by far much easier for any metalhead to digest, and this album really is a good stepping stone into underground black metal; It's raw, lo-fi, "satanic", and nearly as "cvlt" as it gets. But is this release anything beyond any other underground black metal album? Well, that is debatable, depending on what kind of a metalhead you are. Many "cvlt"ers will say this is great, but on a scale of all metal, this might only be a descent listen...
Gottlos was a two-piece, German underground black metal project formed by two members already known to the scene: Barbarud Hrom and Skylepthis. Barbarud deals the vocal delivery for Gottlos, and in the underground, Barbarud Hrom is most known for his vocals in Maniac Butcher, which is often a very underrated and unrecognized band in the field of underground and the legendary black metal, despite how old Maniac Butcher really is. Skylepthis handles the instrumentals and is not as known, but is still mildly known (depending on how much you follow underground black metal) for his drumming and other instrumental writing in Dodsferd and other such underground acts.
The album starts off with the epic intro piece, "Glorious Conquest", and then into the song "Mystis". Although the intro really is cool, it is kind of is misleading when going into the first track, mainly due to the fact that they give you a song that could possibly be in the Lord of the Rings and then they throw you into straight-up, lo-fi black metal. This can either be a killjoy for many, or it can start off the album nicely; this just depends on who you are, I guess. For me the intro flows into the beginning of the first song well and then Hrom kind of tears that away with his croak. The song does not necessarily go beyond blast beats and tremelo picking, and you can kind of already gather what the rest of the song will be like after the first verse. The bass is actually audible in this first song, but it doesn't add much but a low hum. Lyrically the song is vague, yet relatively well-worded despite the line "the old man stairs the blindness"(?). Lyrically, the whole album is anti-god and speaks of war with fallen angels and heaven's angels. Take a look at the album cover and that's what kind of image mostly comes up in your mind when reading the lyrics.
Unfortunately, this album does not do much outside of the expectations for underground, second-wave-esq black metal. "A Nocturnal Monologue" has some descent riffs, but it gets old real fast. "Kytheria" is a good one, and it even gets interesting towards the end, but overall the song plays the same tremelo-riff throughout. It's an album that kind of clings to the stereotypes for black metal and it seems proud to do so. One interesting track on here is "Mesiasuv konec", but that's mainly because it's a cover of Maniac Butcher.
In conclusion: This is an album for only the underground black metal junkies. As a metalhead who does enjoy black metal, I cannot seem to get into this like I can with Mayhem. If this came out in the late 80's it would be revered, but now adays, we've heard it all before. This is definitely good, but it's good in the way that a snack is when you're starving. What do I mean by that? It's good when you can't get your hands on some Emperor. Overall, this is what it is: lo-fi, "trve" black metal. Cheers.
