Glorious Return

I guess very few of you are aware of Vorphalack and even fewer have listened to their music, I guess some of you may remember the review I’ ve done for their previous compilation. However, Vorphalack’ s activity into the Greek Metal scene started sometime in 1988 but although they had a lot of potential, they never managed to make the step forward. So, Lord Alatoth, who has been behind Vorphalack since the beginning, sometime ago decided to revive the project with two band members, and as a trio to release a new and I think officially their first full length album. Its name is ‘Glorious Return’ and it contains six new songs and two instrumental intros, with an overall duration of about thirty minutes. It was released in December of 2023 from Supreme Music Creations in a limited to 500 copies CD. The question that you all must be asking right now is ‘What can they offer after all these years?’, and that’s exactly what I was thinking when I saw the announcement of the new album.

Throughout time Vorphalack have presented different flavors of Black Metal, in some releases their sound is closer to the traditional Greek Black Metal sound, in others they were more melodic and keyboard – driven. Here, I think they tried to create a tribute to the old school, Greek Black Metal sound. The music is heavy with thrash elements, while the riffs are melodic, dark, nostalgic and sometimes epic. The tempo is mainly medium with some faster parts and the keyboards are melodic, atmospheric and minimal, in order to support and create a foggy, dark atmosphere but not steal the listeners’ attention from the guitars. In general, think of a mixture of the classic bands of the Greek Black Metal style and you would be close to what their music sounds like. The tracks are not too lengthy, they last from four to six minutes, and although there are not so many changes throughout the song, they manage to retain the listener’s attention with their straightforward structure.

Moving on to the quality of the sound of the album, I can safely say that this one is the best recording that I have listened to by them. The production is bassy and clean, creating a dark, thick and warm atmosphere. The mixture is balanced giving a boost to the guitars. All instruments are played with passion and present the music in the best way. The vocals are harsh Black Metal vocals, different from those I remembered, but they still are expressive, passionate and they fit perfectly to the music. The only thing that I didn’t really like was the drum machine. Its sound is acceptable but its lines are quite repetitive and in some parts quite generic, missing the creativity and imagination of a real drummer. The lyrics are written in English and they are contained in the six pages booklet and they are hymns of worship to Satan, something that made me wonder how they state that they follow LaVeyan Satanism but their lyrics express a theistic approach to Satanism. Hopefully, some of my questions will be answered in a possible, future interview.

In conclusion, I believe that this is one of their best works so far, if not the best one. After so many years of absence, I would expect their return to offer more tracks and of course to show more creativity or experimentation with their sound but ok, this might be a great warmup for the releases to follow. My favorite songs are Kerasphoros (The Horned One) and Infernal Glory (Our Black Flame), with Satan and Satan’s Way of Life to be really close. And the initial question remains to be answered. Does this release deserve your time? I guess that if you are a devoted follower of Vorphalack, you have already acquired the album and that was the proper thing to do. So, for the rest of you, if you like the old school, Greek Black Metal scene, this is a very good release that you will appreciate for sure. Also if you had in mind to get to know Vorphalack, this is the one you should start with.