PESTILENTIAL SHADOWS

It is never good when the only thing you can think about while listening to an album for the first several songs is the thinness of the production quality. Varying levels of barbarity and lo-fi sound treatments only infrequently present problems when the style is ferocious black metal or old school death, and sometimes actually enhances the experience. The problem with PESTILENTIAL SHADOWS' "In Memoriam, Ill Omen" is that in addition to the already low levels the sound is thin, trebly, and generally mixed in a way that conveys the harshness of the delivery, but little else, which requires extra attentiveness and high volume.

Oh yeah, the music. My annoyance with the sound quality notwithstanding, the band's self-described "Anti-Human Plague Black Metal" is harsh and biting, yet fairly well developed and inclusive of some halfway decent melodic treatments. In other words, it is not THORNSPAWN, even though it reaches that level of maliciousness from time to time. Though the screeching vocals are rather middling (both in pattern and approach),flying above the distorted carnage are some effective tempo changes and attention-grabbing guitar melodies, especially on songs like "With Serpents I Lay" and "Beautiful Demise". Others cuts, as exemplified by "Weapon against the Sun" and "Bathed in Ashes" (never the road to travel when good hygiene is the destination) are more traditionally blast-beaten and excoriating, yet still come with decent melodic touches.

All else being equal, "In Memoriam, Ill Omen" is without much in the way of shabbiness; better than average musically, yet not remarkable. What kills the rating, putting it smack dab in the middle of mediocre, is the production. A failed experiment or a tepid attempt at the creation of a certain kind of atmosphere I cannot say; all I know is that it is distracting and irritating.