Ingredere in Templum Satanae

After seven long years the well-known and oldest band of the scene of Puerto Rico, releases its third full length album. For those who don’t know, Godless is a historic band from Puerto Rico which exists since 1989. Although they have started since then, during ’90ies they released only three demos and one EP but showing their talent and their love for Black Metal. After many changes regarding the formation of the band, in 2004 their first full length release was presented and since then they have released two more albums. “Ingredere in Templum Satanae”, their third full length album in which the band has become an one man band, was released at the end of November of 2013 and contains seven tracks composed by them and a cover track of “Satanic Rites” of Hellhammer of overall duration of forty six minutes.

After all those years I don’t expect any changes concerning the music style of the band that in this album too they play that beautiful mixture of old-fashioned, raw Black Metal with some epic references, always loyal to the old school Black Metal mainly of Europe. The riffs that we come across, other times are heavy, rhythmic with intensively epic style while other times are harsh, barbaric and fast, influenced by the Scandinavian scene. The different element that the listener will find is a paranoid and sick atmosphere that we come across in dsBM releases and the vocals that I will analyze later are responsible for that atmosphere. The duration is different from track to track. Other tracks are fast and short while others are mid – paced with an epic character and longer. However quite good job has been done regarding the structure in all the tracks, so that they don’t become tedious, quite the opposite. There may not be many changes, but those few changes are quite interesting while the memorable riffs maintain the listener’s attention throughout the duration of the album.

The guitar is the instrument that rule in the compositions with the passionate, violent and where it should be atmospheric and dark style of playing. But that doesn’t mean that also for the drums and the bass a remarkable job hasn’t been done. The bass is clearly audible and it gives a dirty, dark character to the compositions and it fills the sound perfectly. The drums have simple lines but they fill the sound well and they offer stability and certainty. The vocals in the biggest part of the album are Black Metal screams which reminded me a lot of Nattramn from Silencer, while we will come across also many operatic parts, some harsh Black Metal vocals and finally some in the style of Attila in “ De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas”. Although the vocals are quite special and may not be the favorite style of vocals for many fans, I think that they fit to the style of Godless, they make the atmosphere more intense and the tracks more interesting. Finally, the problem that the band had in almost all of its previous albums, here it will not trouble us. I refer to the very bad production and mixture which reduced the quality of the previous albums. So here the production is dirty and bass but solid and thick. Also the mixture has achieved to find the balance between the instruments and has offered a very massive and powerful sound.

In conclusion, I have to mention also the very good job that has been done for the lyrics which are written in English and in Latin and they speak about Demons, Satanism, misanthropy. Generally this album may have taken quite many years to be released, but it shows the work of the band during all this time. They have avoided important mistakes of the past especially concerning the production and the mixture and they have added elements which make the overall result more interesting. I think that it is a very good release that worth to buy.