### Apostasy: Devilution

#### 20/03/06 || Statik Majik

Damn, it’s a new Dimmu Borgir album. Too bad I can’t find any info about it on dimmu-borgir.com, no matter how much I try. So I suppose the deal is that they had bunch of leftover songs from the “Death Cult Armageddon” -sessions and decided to release those tunes with a different moniker. Since they were lazy enough to think up a proper name, they ended up using a title from the “Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia” -disc.

And as if that wasn’t enough, they decided to use pictures of their friends for the album booklet of this leftover-cd, just to be on the safe side. They even went that far that they decided to claim they’re from Sweden. Yeah, that’d fool people. Well, too bad, Dimmu – your plan didn’t work. Everyone recognizes your style no matter how you name yourselves.

Right?

Ok, not right. So I’m not going as far with my Dimmu -references with this band as Lord K did with his review on their previous release, but I admit that he definitely had a point there. Well, Lord usually has. If I had this one and any newer Dimmu-album playing randomly, I probably wouldn’t know which one I’d be listening to. Dimmu does have slightly “fatter” production on their newer albums though, but otherwise Apostasy sounds exactly like Dimmu Borgir. Ok, not exactly, they seem to have a little less massive symphony orchestra sounds and maybe just a bit more death metal influences here which IS a major improvement compared to you-know-who.

But is it any good then? Sure it is. Well, it offers very little.. well, actually nothing, new. But don’t get me wrong, it ain’t always a bad thing. If you like Dimmu Borgir, you’ll like this one too. At least they managed to get more sense into their song titles than their role models.

Guess what: I’m probably even going to buy this album. Yeah, it’s that good.

I’m more than tempted to give these Swedes a 7,5 and even on few occasions while listening to this I considered a possible 8. But I have to be honest here (ok, I don’t) and consider the lack of originality here. Nah, fuck it. Originality is overrated anyway. Need a proof? Turn on the sorry excuse for a tv-channel MTV and see the gazillion of nu-metal and/or rap-acts. Originality is extremely close to extinction.

7,5 /10

- Information
- Released: 2005
- Label: Black Mark
- Website: www.apostasy.se
- Band
- Fredric Edin: vocals
- Mattias Edin: guitar
- Henrik Johansson: guitar
- Leif Högberg: keyboards
- Daniel Lindgren: bass
- Richard Holmgren: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Malignant
- 02. Sulphur injection
- 03. Virus
- 04. Supreme architecture
- 05. Vengeance
- 06. Salvation denied
- 07. Soulgrime
- 08. Suicide breeze