THE JILEMNICE OCCULTIST

To my knowledge, this album is the forerunner of the symphonic black metal genre which later spawned bands like Dimmu Borgir, Arcturus, Cradle Of Filth + hundreds of other similar bands. This album also caused a sensation when released and it was as much myth as an album. The importance of this album cannot be underestimated, in other words.

Music wise, this is......... well, symphonic black metal. It can be compared to the four most recent albums from Dimmu Borgir. The Jilemnice Occultist was released in 1992 though so no prizes for guessing who has copied who. The music also sounds like 1992 with a pretty weak rasping vocal and not particular great musicianship. The guitars, bass and drums is supplemented with a large dosage of synth/keyboards. If you also add some theatrical symphonic prog (for example Ange) into the mix too, you get a pretty good idea about this album.

This album is, believe it or not, a concept album. To my knowledge, this is the first ever black metal concept album too. The songs themselves is good though with some cracking good songs inbetween. The music is way more intelligent and better crafted than everything from the black metal scene anno 1992 and most black metal anno 2010 too. But in my standards, this is nothing more than a good album. But those into progressive metal and in particular; black metal should most certainly check out this album.

3.5 stars