### Portrait: Crimen laesae majestatis divinae

#### 23/01/12 || Habakuk

If you hate high-pitched squeal vocals, you need not read on. This album is chock full of them. Just give me one more sentence: I, too hate them with a passion, yet still I find this pretty damn awesome. To the extent where I’m annoyed by the fact that I already handed in my best-of-2011 list before I heard this. At least it still made it onto the “almost there” shortlist. Yep, it’s pretty fucken good. But first things first.

This band is named after a Mercyful Fate song; the vocals I’ve already told you about – do the math and you’ll find that what’s celebrated here is the kind of classic, balls out heavy metal that vanished in a sea of sub-subgenres. No need to go sub here. Just falsetto-scream “HAIL SATAAAAN” and you’re in the right mood. Something about the vocals – or wait – the music around them just places them between bearable and genuinely good. And, to be fair, it rarely goes as retardedly high as Kind Diamond. Who kills Mercyful Fate for me. And I really tried. Oftentimes, this here basically is a raspy old school metal singing voice. With that out of the way, what’s next in focus are the guitars, and they are fucken awesome. After all, if you’re paying tribute to Mercyful Fate, then you better have two skilled guitarists in your folds. Sirs Lindell and Lagergren are two such individuals. Not only do they play some wicked leads and solos, but they also know how to keep many a song interesting, like … … … “Der Todesking”!!! – Kicks off with a “Where eagles dare” drum intro, switches back and forth between a perfect lead and rather “reserved” vocals, then kicks into a great riff, adds a kick-ass twin lead solo, some more Maiden worship from the guitars,… you get it. It lasts for 9 and a half minutes and it never gets boring. Nope, it’s actually engaging as hell. The same goes for my two other favorite numbers, namely “Darkness forever” (scorching emptineeeesss! Lightbringing forces beyond!) and “Beast of Fire”, where you can feel why “Painkiller” was such a killer album despite a theoretically irritating vocalist. Wow, that was a big comparison there.

The other songs, only one of which (+ the pointless instrumental “The wilderness beyond”) ends before the six minute mark, unfortunately don’t reach the heights set out by these three. Obviously that was clear to the band as well, skilled songwriters that they are, and they strategically positioned their choice cuts, which are the longest tunes to boot, at numbers 1, 5 and 8 of all eight songs.

Now don’t assume the rest is all shit, far from it, but it just lacks that certain “something” in terms of catchiness. Rest assured though, there still is enough doublebass pounding, great riffing and squealing plus a few classy leads (“Bloodbath”) to keep you entertained, and of course, all songs profit from the same ballsy production. Songwise, only the somewhat Dissection-like “The Nightcomers” doesn’t quite do it for me, but that’s probably personal preference. Somehow, the whole thing feels a bit like a Maiden album (hey, another big one!) – they all had this one odd song that was a bit off, plus a few falling short behind the real stalwarts, but as a whole, they are all awesome.

So, do I place this right next to the Priest and Maiden albums? Going into scorching emptineeessss!!! again, I just might. If one more of the second tier songs were absolutely awesome, I probably would. It’s real close, and yes, definitely up there with the best of 2011. Overall though, I’ll just say the cover is too shitty and wait for their next release.

- Information
- Released: 2011
- Label: Metal Blade Records
- Website: Portrait MySpace
- Band
- Niklas Svensson: vocals
- Anders Persson: drums
- Christian Lindell: guitars
- Richard Lagergren: guitars
- David Olofsson: bass

- Tracklist
- 01. Twilight
- 02. Of Darksome Origin
- 03. Blood-Colored
- 04. Silent
- 05. Black Tears
- 06. Elegy
- 07. Velvet Dreams
- 08. Enter Chaos
- 09. The Sinner And The Sadness
- 10. Song Of Sirens