Time warp back to 1994. Even though Black Metal is just starting to gain some more attention to the wider Metal audience, some musicians of that scene were already bored by its borders and started to do some experimental stuff. As Industrial was huge in that era of the ’90s and bands like SEPULTURA and FEAR FACTORY incorporated that in their sounds, also Black Metal musicians started to try this out away from their normal band. DIABOLOS RISING was a project of Mika from IMPALED NAZARENE, who always have been one of the extremer bands in Black Metal and Magus Wampyr Daoloth, who was involved in THOU ART LORD and many other Greek projects. I remember holding the album in my hands at a friend’s house and I hated the noise. So I guess it was a good chance to re-discover the album. Well, I must say that opener ‘Genocide – I Am God’ is a cool track and a mixture of Black Metal, Industrial and a vampiric film soundtrack. Surely you need to have a weakness for Industrial, but the material was definitely ahead of its time and it is not less extreme than the stuff on “Ugra Karma”, an album I started to appreciate a lot after not digging it back in the ’90s. ‘Vinnum Sabbati’ has some ’80s vibes with a calm but intense keyboard atmosphere before ‘Give Me Blood Or Give Me Death’ is another mixture between electronical sounds, Industrial paired with the harsh vocals of Mika and some computer drumming with pounding double-bass attacks. What really stands out is the groove they created here. ‘Satanas Lead Us Through’ sounds like an early version of ‘Total War – Winter War’, but with some really cool 80s styled keyboards and I really start to dig the material nowadays. What sounded to me like pure noise back in the ’90s offers some really well-thought and extreme ideas. ‘Sorcery – Scientia Maxima’ offers some really cool keyboard based sounds and Mika also starts to whisper here and there to vary the vocals. ‘Χ – Ξ – ΣΤ” offers some vampiric electrical tunes again and is a good example who wide the musical range of the guys was. “666” is another example why it is worth to check old material which gets re-released as you may find some really interesting tunes you missed out back in the days. For more info, please check the following site or order the strictly limited digi-book version (333 copies): www.facebook.com/thedevilselixirsrecords