Basilisk - _A Joyless March Through the Cold Lands_
(Meurtre Noir, 2004)
by: T. DePalma (6 out of 10)
The debut album by UK entity Basilisk offers a more orthodox side of English black metal, keeping close to a standardized formula of minimalist, necro stylings. For the most part, this is a vortex of racing open chord riffs, ridden by the flammable whispers of sole-creator Vintyr's vocals; a set of tracks advantageously defined by the nakedness of the recording with the gaseous hiss of feedback and all consequential dissonance. If you have heard Basilisk's first demo, _Blackened Royalty_, it is easier to appreciate that this as an actual step up in sound quality, but one that doesn't sacrifice much for the sake of a primary work. The album's coda breaks apart from this style but remains in the spirit of things with the dank instrumental "The Awakening of HIM", a clean and eerie piece that threads overlapping guitar leads into one sabbatical hymn.That this album is fastened to a strict idealism (and nomenclature), thus restricting itself to an already heavily pilfered cache of influences, shouldn't entirely divert from its competent achievement; Basilisk is a band that may seem content in being "unoriginal", but musically _AJMTtCL_ offers dispersed moments of peculiarity where interesting and continual riffs emerge through the more basic sound, giving the album its poisonous quality, a portent for greater promise ahead.
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