DEVILISH IMPRESSIONS
"Plurima Mortis Imago"
Plurima Mortis Imago is the first full-length release by Polish band Devilish Impressions. The minute I hear the phrase “Polish metal band” I immediately think of brutal, driving metal. This is an image that was quickly dispelled by Plurima Mortis Imago, which is a sumptuous, majestic offering of Norwegian-style symphonic black metal. The word that immediately springs to mind with this album is “epic”. OK, that’s a grossly over-used description, but in this case it’s accurate. I don’t just mean that we have an album with some keyboards somewhere, this is really epic in terms of scope and vision. I’m not keen on describing things as being like other bands, and I don’t wish to detract from the
originality of this album, but it is somewhere in the direction of “Spiritual Black Dimensions” era Dimmu Borgir. This is a release with a huge range, with great chunks of music echoing around like a gothic cathedral. There’s a nice mix of instrumental pieces scattered throughout, but the main thrust of the album is some highly technical, beautifully produced black metal. This album runs along at a breakneck pace for the most part, with Quazarre’s deranged vocals providing an interesting tortured counterpoint to the insistent blastbeats. There are, however, changes of pace slipped in just where you wouldn’t expect them, including some rather nice dreamy keyboard episodes, courtesy of Turquoissa. The whole effect is one of inevitability: it seems as though the tracks have evolved in some organic fashion into a tortured reflection of some kind of bastardised reality. Because, make no mistake, Devilish Impressions’ world is not a happy place to be. This is most outstandingly demonstrated by fourth track “Dracula’s Mechanized Universe”, with its opening clear keyboard sounding rather like a stirring film soundtrack. This is an extremely imaginative track, using the full and extensive range of Quazarre’s incredibly talented vocals. There’s a lovely interpretation of Beethoven at the end, which should be out of place, but for some reason is absolutely perfect.Turquoissa shows her talents again on “? and ? spaces” which is a very cleverly positioned little interlude which nicely breaks up the harsher reality of life. And harsh is most definitely the word as things really get going after this point with Quazarre baying for blood. The pictures painted by the lyrics are about as unpleasant as you could hope for, but they pale into insignificance when you see the video clip that was made to accompany final track “Sataichaosymphony”. Just think “drug-induced nightmare in a ghetto with extreme violence” and you won’t be too far off the mark. I applaud Lukas Troup’s prowess as a director, but I’m not sure that I’d want to be inside his head.Plurima Mortis Imago is an outstanding album, one of those rare productions where you constantly notice something different each time you listen to it. Overall, this is a stunningly original piece, which thoroughly deserves to be listened to.
Sam Thomas