Phantom - Divine Necromancy

Designed to be the ultimate atmospheric black metal album, Phantom's debut makes use of the most basic riffs and songwriting concepts available to present a vision of the most demonic music possible, as frenetic, simplistic and chaotic as hell itself. Pulsing drums play savage blast beats with little variation, and guitars drone between three or four dissonant notes to create either a main theme, via technically simple yet conceptually complex riffs, or one or two of its counterpoints.

All song development is either melodic or harmonic, as rhythmic variation is absent, perhaps intentionally so. What seems incoherent noise at first will reveal itself more often than not to be a clever expansion of a main theme into its counter-motives, or into a more textured atmospheric dialogue between two or more riffs. On Divine Necromancy, Phantom is shown to understand what few 'war metal' bands get - that the strength of such music lies not in rhythmic 'grooves', but in the melodic freedom that atonality confers via the use of the chromatic scale. In that, Phantom is kilometers ahead of almost all modern black metal bands.

So, if Divine Necromancy is so good, why is it not on the Morsay List like other Phantom albums? Divine Necromancy was made to conjure evil and sinister atmospheres. It works. The atmospheres on Phantom's debut are unmatched, and will make even the hardest black metal veteran recoil.

But what is lacking from this album, compared to future Phantom releases, is the complexity in narrative development, the trademarked 'riff labyrinths' Phantom is known for. Basically, everything Divine Necromancy does, Withdrawal and Fallen Angel do better. More complex, more narrative, more thematically developed, all without sacrificing atmosphere. I know this opinion is unpopular, as to be 'trve' and 'kvlt' you have to swear only by Phantom's debut, but that's the truth. Deal with it.

Back to Phantom