Order of the Obscure

Flagellum Dei is band which consists of four members and comes from Portugal. In Black Metal they exist since 1998 and they have released up to today, three demos (2000, 2002, 2005), a split (2003) and three full length albums (2004, 2007, 2011). The awesome cover and the layout generally, guide you to imagine what you are going to listen to in “Order of the Obscure”. Black and White, old school and Evil cover which refers to a dirty, fast, old fashioned Black Metal in the style of Blasphemy or Black Witchery. Things are not quite so. Influences by the bands mentioned above don’t exist. So the band plays a fast, dirty, Scandinavian Black Metal with Marduk and Funeral mist influences whereas some parts brought to my mind Mayhem of “De mysteris”. Also in many parts you will notice the dirty sound of Motorhead and many thrash influences.

The album begins with a quite good mid tempo intro and nine tracks follows one of which is mentioned as instrumental but in fact it is a boring ambient passage. The riffs changes from fast, full of hate to more slow riffs which combine hate with grief and to clearly thrash riffs. The guitars, as someone easily can understand also by the mix, play the leading role and they play it well. The bass can’t be heard clearly whereas the drums are played very well and with very interesting lines. The vocals show quite big variety and expressiveness. Depending on the part there are heavy Black vocals, clean operatic vocals maybe in the style of Mystifier and spoken word in the dirty style of Attila. The production is bassy, dirty and creates a very massive sound. The mix is moderate because after the second or third listen you became familiar with the sound and you can listen to the vocals which sound very lower than rest of the instrument thus to be lost in some parts.

The lyrics of two tracks are written in Portuguese while the rest of them in English. The band deal with Evil, devil worship, rituals , etc. Everything is written in the very cult and true approach of the band.

“Order of the Obscure” has also something else that surprised me. The last two tracks are in a complete different style of the rest. It’s like they took them from another album and put them here so as to complete this one. However the album is quite good, without offering something new, it does what it should in a quite good level. It deserves you listen to it.