Capitollium - Bloodfall Of Flesh
Sworn Records
Symphonic Black Metal
9 songs (43:41)
Release year: 2008
Capitollium, Sworn Records
Reviewed by Goat

Ukraine isn’t the first place you’d expect to find a symphonic Black Metal band from, the country stereotypically being the new home of Folky Black Metal. Yet here we have Capitollium - a project featuring members of several other prominent and not-so-prominent bands from the L’viv region, most significantly Kroda - sounding like a Dimmu Borgir clone such as populates the lower levels of the Black Metal infrastructure. Of course, like most Symphonic Metal bands there’s going to be a certain amount of similarity between peers, and being fair to Capitollium the band does sound pretty individual. What can’t be escaped throughout Bloodfall Of Flesh’s running time is the feeling that what you’re listening to is somehow familiar. There are elements of (early) Cradle Of Filth, of mid-period Dimmu, even of Nightwish due to a real live professional opera-trained female vocalist.

Capitollium, then, are hardly tearing up the rulebook, but there’s enough here to make it a worth a listen for fans. There’s notable influence from the likes of Rotting Christ and Septicflesh that makes this immediately better than you’d expect, and the frequent and high-in-the-mix keyboards have a subtly strange Church organ sound to them. Plus, there’s drummer Terrorist who is pretty darn good, capable of complex fills as well as all-out blasting – although sadly the production makes him sound rather like a drum machine at times. There’s no faulting St Julius and Antichrist’s riffing here, either. No, the band may not have spent long thinking up original alter egos (former members include ‘Heretic’ and ‘Demon’) but they clearly spent the time saved on the music, making the songs more complex than first appears and several times avoiding the route that you’d expect, such as Ego Sum Lead’s refusal to blast.

Other interesting moments include the Industrial vibes of Arachnophobia, with an Ihsahn-sound alike on backing clean vocals, the Eastern melodies and subtle Prog of Triumphator and a cover of Behemoth’s Chant For Ezxhaton 2000 that highlights the epic aspects of the original. The album overall won’t be making any end-of-year best-of lists, but for what it is Bloodfall Of Flesh will make those it’s aimed at happy.

MySpace
Killing Songs :
Ego Sum Lead, Arachnophobia, Triumphator
Goat quoted 74 / 100
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