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Ah yes, this is refreshing. Temple of Baal plays raw Black Metal but they don't limit themselves to that, sometimes venturing into some more elaborate guitar riffs that are not without reminding me of Ride The Lightning/Master of Puppets-era Metallica (not as refined, but the feeling is there.) As for the rest, think a mix of Darkthrone and Hegemon, with some more heavy/thrash riffage thrown in for seasoning. It's been a while since I've listened to a Black Metal album that made me nod in approval, and "Servants of the Beast" comes to save the furniture. They're not exactly original, as there are quite a good number of guitar melodies in there that remind me of other bands (the aforementioned plus a few more that I can't recall), but the way they arranged the final product more than makes up for it. It's not every day that you run into a raw Black Metal album that has so many catchy moments (a "dark" kind of catchy - let's stay evil and stuff... :)) Vocals are low BM screeches, nothing out of the ordinary and mixed just right as to not take too much away from the music, just the way I like it.

No girlie gimmicks on this album, the band sticks to the basic instruments and does it well - who needs keyboards to screw up the sound anyway? As can be expected in the genre, this is far from over-produced, but as with any good raw BM band worthy of the name, the somewhat minimal production adds to Temple of Baal's sound rather than take away from it. If you're looking for Dimmu-style production, you may want to look elsewhere.

I'd usually bitch at the relatively short length (for an album), but when you listen to the album, it just feels like it's the right length (and I'd rather have a short album than one of those albums with silences or whatever at the end!) The guitars alone may actually get some people who are usually put off by the minimalistic playing of some Black Metal bands - they are the definitive highlight of the album, but the drums and vocals should not be ignored either - the band is a good unit and this is good stuff all over. I get the feeling that this album will be spending more than its share of time in my CD player.