The DIMMU BORGIR virus has been spreading throughout the galaxy and the SOTHIS debut is the proof that also our dear friends from America are not immune against this evil illness. I was really looking forward for a further tough American band like MARTRIDEN or ABIGAIL WILLIAMS but this time the score is zero. The band from Los Angeles had released a highly praised demo in 2004 and finally after several years of hard work they are presenting their debut "De Oppresso Liber". Due to the fact that all below mentioned bands are part of the Candlelight family I was not expecting this typical Black Metal clone. SOTHIS major problem is not the musical parallels with the big brother from Norway but the overall structure of their songs. All songs are following the same scheme, meaning one basic guitar idea, a nice dominating keyboard melody plus some aggressive vocals. SOTHIS are following their golden rule during the whole album without any exception; they added no further elements to their music (accoustic guitar, clean vocals etc.) Next to this I can’t avoid to mention that a handful of SOTHIS ‘ideas’ are more than well known (especially the title track) so at the end "De Oppresso Liber" is a further completely unnecessary release and an additional nail to the coffin of traditional Black Metal. www.candlelightrecords.co.uk, www.sothis.us