HeavyHardMetalmania: Bane's The Acusual Fire Reviewed

So I'm going to start the review of Bane's - The Acusual Fire with one, no, with two questions! Do you like Dissection? and do you like Dark Funeral? If you answer yes to one or more of these questions, stop reading and go and pick up this album since you will like it, and you know what you will get more or less. I say this because Bane sounds like the two aforementioned bands spent a satanic and romantic evening together and 6:66 months later Bane was born.

So what do we get in The Acusual Fire? To put it simple, we get melodic black metal, we get an intro, seven songs and outro and a cover of the song Night's blood by one of the bands I mention in this review, we get the signature riffing and use of harmony of Dissection mastermind Jon Nödtveigt combined with the signature riffing of Lord Ahriman from Dark funeral. Am I saying that this is a bland rip off?? Well no, there are some strong similarities and influences in the riffing but Bane has their own personality for sure, I would like to say they have taken their influences and made something of their own with it.

You say, what is black metal? dissection that sounds disgusting and why is the funeral dark??

Ok, so what I'm ranting about is fast paced extreme metal music, called black metal.

As in the case of Bane we get a lot of tremolo picking at blistering speeds, a lot of minor bar chord in the guitar department. The drums bang away at mostly frantic paces, using blast beats, 2/4 and 4/4 beats (I'm not entirely sure if that is the way you write it in English). The use of double bass is almost constant, and why not, the drummer most surely knows how to use his double pedal, very nice. Sure sometimes they slow it down and give us some more epic and almost symphonic moments.

The vocals are typical black metal screams and growls, something that caught my attention thou was the use of clean vocals, it's a bit weird, it is in no way bad, it just caught me a bit off guard, since they are disharmonic, a bit out of key or something, I can't really put my fingers on it actually. But anyway I think it is cool, and they serve as a cool little break from the demonic shouts.

And speaking of the vocals, they are very good. The singer sure got his stuff down. Since he varies the vocals with both screams and growls the stuff is always varied and interesting. I have to say that the playing overall is very good on this album, every one of the members seams to really know what they are doing! Another cool touch is the melodic guitar solos, very nice, since they serve as a bit of a breather in all the brutality. And they don't feel out of place at all. In the last song (excluding the outro and cover) Existence in denial, we are treated to a more shred solo. And that is always welcomed!!

The first thing I thought about when I started to listen to this album is that you can actually hear the bass, this makes me very happy. I'm a big bass fan, and in most black metal albums the bass is buried so far back in the sound landscape that it is almost impossible to hear it. But in the case of The Acusual fire this is not the case, the bass is clear and heavy, so this is one of the things that makes this album sticks out a bit. It is an black metal album with some balls, and some weight behind if. Don't get me wrong there are many black metal albums that I love that are just big treble fests, but some bass is a nice change.

The second thing that struck me was the use of some middle eastern sounding scales, and this is also something I really think is kick ass. Since plain and simple minor key riffing in black metal is a bit done to death if you ask me. And here we get some different spices in our black metal soup. The production you ask, it's great, everything is clear and you can hear everything very well. Nothing is over powered, everything is balanced.

So what about the cover?? It is a straight up cover, the only difference is that Banes version has a better production, or should I say a more modern production. It has a bit more power to it.

To conclude, if you like melodic black metal, this is really an album you should own and worship. Everything is great, the songs, the musicianship and the production.

By:
Sweden`s Wilhelm Lindh, "Portuguese by adoption," guitar player, composer and owner of the Doom / Death Metal band The Gardnerz, reviews here in HeavyHardMetalmania.net. Careful and professional analysis to the music and albums with suggestions of what there is to see and hear ... not to be missed. "The wisdom is found in the extremes, all extreme Metal here!".