Divine Element - Divine Element

Release Date: June 3, 2010
Label: Band Self Released

TRACK LISTING

1.  Introitus
2.  Of Darkness
3.  A Day For The Hunter,
     A Day For The Prey
4.  Dawn Of Battle
5.  Ancient Pride
     (Necromantia Cover)
6.  Fall Of Purity
7.  Crossing The Rubicon

Total playing time:  45:22

July 5, 2010

Reviewer: Chris

Greece’s Divine Element offers its take on the black metal movement with its first self-titled full-length. It seems the Greek scene is alive again after Necromantia kicked in the door a few years back. 

Amidst some impressive guitar work and nicely-formulated black metal void of trend or ridiculous face-painted rehashing, Divine Element has some tremendous musical characteristics. Without relying on the typical insane speediness of the modern black metal “movement,” this album takes some of that speed and channels it in all of the proper areas. There’s speed not just for speed’s sake, but to move evenly and in structured fashion. Black thrash simply doesn’t seem strong enough, yet I don’t want to sit here and add all of these inane tags to the music. It’s good metal with black elements, plain and simple.

Some of the album’s more fascinating moments come from the sincerity of the music the band creates. Divine Element is in itself a fine piece of dark metal that I hasten to deem just straight black metal simply due to its slower-paced melodic value, but it is what it is. That doesn’t diminish its inherently black qualities by any means; the intensely forbidding tone of the album relents not a bit. These four guys have a very interesting sound that makes for a more than enjoyable album. I like the transitioning of the classic death metal sound to the structured calm of “Of Darkness.”

The vocals from bassist Alchemist cover the gamut of death metal quite coherently; they are discernable and fit just right over that coveted din of evil noise. The rest of the band captures the black metal sound to a tee, with some polished, yet non-repetitive arrangements. The synth sound here is just subtle enough to grab your attention without murdering or saturating the guitar tone, a practice all too common today that should literally be criminal.    

“Crossing the Rubicon,” “Of Darkness,” and “Dawn of Battle” are the quick standouts upon first listen, but the Necromantia cover of “Ancient Pride” is pretty good as well. All in all, these guys have some serious backbone and talent to keep forging ahead nicely. The future might be even better for these guys should they grow and continually develop already fine music.   

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