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I get so very, very tired of the pretentious bands with their faux-Latin names and album titles. It’s overdone, it’s almost a cliché at this point, and this band, for example, has mangled the Cicero quote their name is supposed to reference. No points awarded for heavy-handed fake intellectualism.

The music, however, is not bad. The riffs pack a lot more melody than is usual for extreme metal, and as such this has a more arresting sound than you would expect. There’s also a nice polyrhythmic approach to the drums and the syncopation of the vocal lines, so they are much more engaging than they usual blast-and-screech style of Black Metal. It gives this album a memorable quality and individual sound it otherwise would not have. Maybe not a classic, but this band is pushing the envelope and trying something different, and for that I applaud them.