DIABLERY “Candles”
By Dr. Abner Mality
DIABLERY from Greece have conjured up a pretty good blast of melodic black metal with “Candles”. Despite their Mediterranean location, they easily sound like they could be from Sweden or Norway here...there is very little of that typical Greek BM sound.
The songs are quite epic, most in the 7 to 9 minute realm, and each one restlessly moves from riff to riff, never locking into a monotonous groove. Almost every track has a section where things “cool down” momentarily before starting up again and ending in a powerful climax. The gas pedal is mashed flat for most of the album, as every song is fast and bracing. To tell the truth, there were some tracks where DIABLERY could have used some editing...”The Star Veiled Face” and “Moonlit Dome Revealed” kind of dragged. But for the most part, the songs are classic Nordic black metal with fast, freezing riffs and icy melodies in the DISSECTION vein.
The production here is superb, with every instrument coming across loud and clear. No fuzzy “necro” stuff here. Everything comes together on the killer track “The Earth Covered My Face”, which is just so archetypal! “Candles” is an album that most black metal fans will enjoy.