Killing, Raping, Burning / The Devil's Advocate

Lord Foul come from the unknown part of the American underground. They were formed in 1993, they consist of only one member and after releasing two demos, they split up. In 2009 the American label, Forever Plagued Records, decided to get those two demos and to release them in an album – compilation of twenty minutes duration. The music doesn’t show much difference from the one demo to the other and it moves in the primitive, raw and blasphemous Black Metal which reminds much of Havohej and Profanatica.

In the album we will find both brutal, fast as also rhythmic, dark riffs. Generally the riffs are harsh, straightforward and monolithic. The guitars are quite dirty and distorted, they don’t become annoying nor they make the listen difficult and they deliver the harsh sound that fits to the compositions. The bass is played well and it fills nicely the sound. On the other hand the drums aren’t so good. Especially in the tracks of the first demo, the drummer tries to follow the band without always succeeding. In the next demo the drums are improved but again their sound is so dirty that you can’t listen to what they play. The vocals are harsh, primitive Black Metal vocals, monotonous and powerful they add violence to the compositions.

Production and mixture don’t exist in the first demo. The sound seems like it comes from a rehearsal. In the next demo the sound has been quite improved but it maintains that primitive and harsh sound but cleaner. The sound of The Devil’s Advocate is exactly the one that should be so as both the instruments to be heard clearly and that typical harsh sound to exist. The lyrics are written in English and by what I understood by the listens, they express the band’s antichristian hate, without deep meanings or difficult concepts, direct as their music.

This compilation shows us the discography of a band which doesn’t have anything important to add to the sound, at least musically. All those of you who search and deal with the American underground of the ’90ies, get this release only for historical or collection purposes. The rest of you listen to something else.