Somehow I was expecting this to be Death Metal, so I was a little surprised to hear some melodic/symphonic Black Metal that flirts a little with Melodic Death Metal. The vocals borrow more from the latter, semi-decipherable low growls that have little to do with Black Metal, though the fit the low-profile music style here very well. This is pretty keyboard-heavy, though the keyboards are kept a little in the background, so they rarely ever bury anything else. I couldn't shake the feeling that maybe this would be better without the keyboards, since they often sound more like an afterthought, an "add-on" if you will – though they are some passages where everything blends well together. It's a bit uneven in that regard.

Other than that, the music is alright but a little uneventful – there's nothing here that really caught my attention: It's good, but unremarkable and pretty generic overall. The songs that would otherwise have a lot of punch are too watered down by the presence of keyboards. There's a cover of The Police's "Message in a Bottle" that gets the heavy, speedy treatment which sets the song a little apart. The instrumental outro is pretty cool – nothing extraordinary, just some heavy shredding with somber keyboard notes that fade away, closing the album in style.

Diabolical Figures may not be the most original album out there in the genre, but it does have its moments – check out a few songs before buying.