This is the seventh full length album from Limbonic Art, one of Norway's most infamous purveyors of Wagnerian synthesizer drenched black metal. I must admit to having some reservations about listening to this one however, as I had heard that the usual two piece line up had now been reduced to one, making Limbonic Art a solo project for the first time. But even as we say farewell to founding member Morfeus who has gone on to pastures new, we still welcome back a recognisable sound from solitary member Daemon.
Firstly, it seems that Daemon has stripped down the bands sound somewhat. At times, the songs actually seem riff based – something that rarely came to the fore on previous albums due to the dense synthesizer work being such a huge part of the bands overall sound. Tracks like 'Curse of the Necromancer' and 'Portal to the Unknown' bring to mind early Emperor, with dramatic swells of synth ensconcing the furious tremolo picked guitars and rollicking drums (yes, the ever present drum machine again rears it's head here – but to be fair, it's pretty good as drum machines go).
However, it is questionable whether Morfeus added a certain quality control to Limbonic Art's musical output. Phantasmagoria clocks in at just over 71 minutes in length – long albums are nothing out of the ordinary for Limbonic Art, but in my experience, they generally never felt as long as this one does. Personally I feel that if perhaps 20 minutes or so were cut from the run time, this would've notched the album up in my estimations. This is not to say it's a crap album at all, it just overstays its welcome compared to other lengthy albums of a similar style.
As it goes, this is a lot better than I was expecting. Thus, I am pleasantly surprised to see that the band can continue releasing decent material as a solo project. In fact, I'd go as far as saying I prefer this slightly more primitive approach to songwriting better than the material released on the bands previous 2 albums. It's surprising to see what a difference it makes to the bands tone without quite so much fruitsome keyboard-a-philia. This is Limbonic Art without quite so much tinsel and glitter, if you will. Along with the majority of bands that are releasing their 7th album, they'll never top their earliest material, but this still stands up as a great album by itself and I'm certainly compelled to revisit it again soon... maybe just with the skip button close by for 'trimming purposes'.
http://www.myspace.com/limbonicart
