Righty, I’m a trifle confused here. I get a promo in the post, want to find out a bit more about the band and as a natural progression in the research enter their website…only to learn the these Germans disbanded two years ago?!? What the…?

Fair enough, the release is called ‘A Retrospective…’ and the title must be right on the spot, then. A retrospective for a band with no future. Lovely.

Notwithstanding the dodgy background, the music is something else. Without knowing the first releases of Empyrium, I have a feeling that this is yet another black metal band that has gone on to move the boundaries of the genre by becoming something completely different.

‘A Retrospective…’ is more than an hour’s worth of classically inspired bombast, little spurts of black metal like aggression, acoustic pieces, flutes, mellotrons, north winds and theatrical baritone voices that say serious things in German. If I were to make any comparisons at all, I’d have to drag Moonspell into the arena, because that’s about the only other outfit I can draw parallels to (and still not quite).