SPECTRAL LORE is a perfect blend of ambient and progressive black metal from Greece. Less than a year after the band’s split release with Mare Cognitum, Spectral Lore released III which Ayloss, the sole member behind Spectral Lore, himself calls his best work to date. Many problems arose during the recording of this album since 2008. The album Sentinel was released in 2012 as a way for Ayloss to vent the frustration due to many production problems he faced during the process of III but now here’s a masterpiece release from Ayloss that was well worth the hard work he put into it.
III has all that of your usual black metal album such as the tremelo-picked guitars, blast beats and eerie, distant vocals but it doesn’t cross over into the repetitive and mundane. Each track has little subtle parts you may not catch the first listen but playing through again you may notice. Some songs tend to have dark, ambient parts such as a guitar ringing out a note and what may sound like feedback. Other tracks like “The Veiled Garden” border into the depressive and sombre black metal side with a little bit of doom influence having the slower tempo, beautiful orchestration and distant screams and screeches that will send chills down your back.
The album is well composed and flawless in all aspects of a great black metal release that any listener could ask for. Moments in the album pass between furiously fast riffs and blast beats to an almost funeral-doom speed with death metal growls thrown in. There are no boring parts or songs to skip through on this album. It may have been tough work for Ayloss to put this album together but it truly is a masterpiece to any fan of great, progressive and ambient black metal that has no direction. Any fan of beauty and ferocity, simple yet complex and just complete virtuosity will love this album. III is available through I, Voidhanger Records now.
MY VOTE:
5.0/5.0
