CoC : Benighted Leams - Astral Tenebrion : Review

Benighted Leams - _Astral Tenebrion_
(Supernal Music, 1998)
by: David Rocher (0.5 out of 10)

Whoah Fallen One, hail the mighty return of the new flamebearer of black metal intellectualism -- or to be quite sincere, behold Mr. Bean go black metal! Albeit beginning with a nice-ish eerie intro, _Astral Tenebrion_ rapidly degenerates into one of the most outrageously laughable "black metal" fiascos I have ever witnessed -- along with the works of Darkness Enshroud, Judas Iscariot and a few others, of course... Lame riffing (or rather, electrified strumming) is monotonously hammered home by a binary beatbox battering which even succeeds, so poor is the sound, in blocking out most of the strings. Add to this tonedeaf metallic mess the hilarious deadpan "operatic" vocals (reminiscent of the inarticulate sounds one may gurgle whilst undergoing a tooth extraction...), and the feeble "wannabe futuristic" approach to black metal this one-man project tries to cook up, and you have one of this decade's greatest metal crashes, compared to which Arckanum's latest opus is a display of genuine virtuosity.

(article published 19/11/1998)