The Entry of the Demons

One and a half year has passed since I received the first demo release of the one man band from Finland, Iapethos. That demo gave me the impression that this band has talent, even though it was a work with a lot of mistakes and carelessness. The band returns this year, a year after “Shrines of Chaos” to release its first full length album named “The Entry of the Demons”. This album contains nine tracks and it lasts for about thirty seven minutes. Those of you who have listened to the demo you will understand that not much have changed neither concerning the band’s style, nor concerning its sound.

The listener will come across an atmospheric, commanding Black Metal with a lot of ambient elements and an intense, industrial/electronic character which is offered by the drum machine. The riffs are other times melodic and atmospheric, other times brutal and fast and other times minimalistic delivering the ambient elements that I mentioned above. A very important role in the compositions, maybe they are sharing the first role with the guitars, is played by the keyboards. Their sound is so atmospheric, dark and commanding, that they create to the listener emotions of fear and agony. There is much variety in the riffing and combined with the very nice keyboards, a quite interesting result is presented. The structure in the majority of the tracks is good. However there are various parts that they are not interesting at all and they become somehow tedious.

The guitars are distorted and their volume is somewhat lower than it should have been so that they are covered in some parts either by the drum machine either by the keyboards. The bass is not audible at all while the keyboards are those that they fill the sound and create the atmosphere. I listened a lot of times the album in order to manage to get over the unacceptable drum machine. As in the demo, the drum machine is the one that ruins the atmosphere and lowers the quality of the album. Its programming maybe it reminds of Mysticum a little and it is not bad neither has it any mistakes. However, what annoys is its so loud volume that in some parts it covers the rest of the instruments and pierces the listener’s ears with the acute and snapping sound. The vocals are harsh, distorted Black Metal screams. The lyrics are written in English and through a very interesting and poetic speech they narrate Demonic stories full of lyricism and hate.

I think that “The Entry of the Demons”, the recent work of the band is in many parts improved compared to the previous one. It presents a very good job in the keyboards’ lines and beautiful, interesting riffs. However the problems in the mixture and the sound of the drum machine are still here, making the listen difficult and making the listener get bored. The album could have been a good release into Industrial Atmospheric Black Metal, but unfortunately the problems don’t let me suggest this album to anyone but the genre’s fanatics and the fans of the band. The rest of you avoid.