BLOOD STAINED DUSK

I really struggled with this one. I'd go back and forth between assessing "Black Faith Inquisition" as an epic tour de force of melodic black metal and a painstakingly long, verbose black metal album that tries to do too much. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

There is no question that Alabama's BLOOD STAINED DUSK put their collective heart and soul into "Black Faith Inquisition". Its 71 minutes are jam packed with complex compositions that are rooted in the best that the classic period of Scandinavian black metal had to offer and injected it with grand melodic passages rife with dark and beautiful keyboards and loads of magnificent BM harmonizing and passionate soloing. Lead vocalist Pest (GORGOROTH) is at his croaky sinister best, while haunting clean singing and spoken word abominations provide poignant contrast. The songs are often in the nine to 10 minute range and even the album's introduction, an invocation called "March to Death", is over four minutes in length. Much of what is heard recalls vintage DIMMU BORGIR and DISSECTION when black metal and melody were joined in a way that brought out the majesty with the malice. The approach is most appealing on "Of Wolf's Blood", a song that contains some of the album's catchiest guitar lines and spooky/memorable keyboard melodies.

Unlike DISSECTION and DIMMU BORGIR though, the ambitious tracks go on for such lengths that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish where you are at during the journey at any given time, unless you are paying close attention for the duration. For all the entrancing passages, there are too many times when it seems like a less-is-more technique would have made the impact longer lasting. There are moments when certain parts seem like overkill, such as the mildly irksome spoken section of "Conquering the Avarice of Mortality".

Nowhere does it feel like the band cheated itself in its quest to write a magnum opus though. As a work of art, "Black Faith Inquisition" is a sumptuous long player. But chopping 20 minutes off the running time would have made it easier to absorb in one sitting. And therein lies the rub. "Black Faith Inquisition" is a fine album, but it is one that works best when the mood strikes, rather than an album guaranteed to do the trick no matter the time of day or mental state of the listener.