Saturday, February 3, 2018

Lilyum - "Altar of Fear" (Vacula Productions, 2017)

Band: Lilyum
Title: Altar of Fear
Genre: Black Metal
Year: 29th August 2017
Time: 47 min
Rating: 81/100













Wow, this "Altar of Fear" is the fifth release by Lilyum reviewed on these pages! For who that know nothing about them, Lilyum is a prolific black metal band from Turin (one of the most beautiful cities of my country also because it's very artistic and full of gigantic squares, the mighty Piazza Castello in primis!) able, in the past, to release amazing albums as "Crawling in the Past" (rating: 94/100) but also some wrong steps like the disappointing "Nothing is Mine" (62/100), always offering a sound with creative ideas. Founded in the now far 2002 even as a groove metal band (!), Lilyum, since 2009, are mainly composed of the mastermind Kosmos Reversum and Lord J.H. Psycho, also if some albums were recorded without the contribution of the latter. Throughout the years, these two maniacs have been helped by other two people very known into the Italian black metal scene: the singer Xes (Infernal Angels, and active in Lilyum between 2011 and 2015) and the hyper-active Sicilian session drummer Frozen, now became a full-time member of this band (and it was finally time, I say!). You have to consider that the previous album, "October's Call", was recorded with a line-up reduced only to Kosmos Reversum and Xes, so this 7th full-lenght called "Altar of Fear", released by the Ukrainian label Vacula Productions, see the the welcome return of both Lord J.H. Psycho and Frozen (without him, Lilyum use a drum-machine in every case) and, in addition, since Xes is out, the vocals of the same Lord J.H. Psycho are finally back to torment your dreams! So, let's go to discover this new effort, that Kosmos Reversum sent to me 5 months ago circa in physical CD (said frankly, the physical copies are and will be always better than the digital ones, now a classic for the reviews).