Dark Celebration - Phlegeton: The Transcendence Of Demon Lords (2009)

Dark Celebration is an old school Death/Black Metal band from Brazil that is trying to keep the style alive. “Phlegeton….” marks their second full length album but strangely enough it’s only 30 minutes long.

The band’s style is very reminiscent of early Morbid Angel and to me it sounds very similar to The Chasm. The band tries to bring back that old school style that I haven’t heard in a while, and they do so to some extent.

“Phlegeton….” features seven tracks that clearly showcase the band’s talents at playing music, but if fails a bit short since the album is not very cohesive and sounds like plenty of different elements and good ideas plastered together.

The band’s guitar work by it self is pretty good since it has that Trash/Heavy metal vibe and features some interesting melodies. However in my opinion what brings the overall score of this album is the very linear style that most songs follow, making them feel very mechanical. There are plenty of good riffs here and there, but in the overall composition they get lost.

The vocals are in my opinion the other reason I don’t like this album too much, the majority of the vocals sound very forced (except the growls) and get really annoying after 2-3 songs, the layering of both growls and harsh vocals is very random and sounds very weird sometimes. Making the overall music very odd and seems to not fit well together.

In general this band shows good ideas here and there, but the overall composition of the songs sound very linear and not very cohesive either. I hope the band arranges their ideas better next time since they sound like they can produce a good album.

Release: July 2009

Country: Brazil