Signs of maturity are indeed evident considering all aspects of this Demonic Resurrection release. I heard DR 5 years ago, when they released their debut-‘DEMONSTEALER’; it was a weak outing, comparing it to bands playing symphonic black metal here in Asia. All that ‘Demonstealer’ could do for young Sahil (vocals/guitar) was, provide an immense confidence that extreme bands can record and sell records in this part of the world. Let me not waste precious web space for my site by getting too much into technical aspects of that album. Mind you, this is reworked DR in terms of shape, formation, style, direction and production.

I can sense the high tides about to hit seashores of mumbai, as soon as track 1 ‘Prelude to darkness’ concludes. ‘Dreams of the dead ‘provides a gut-busting opening; first thing worth noticing was profound drumming; that strengthens audibleness of ‘a darkness descends’ as a whole. I am specially mentioning this because, it has always been my complaint with extreme Indian bands that have completely disappointed me in drum mixing department. Total credit to DR’s sound engineers for a perfect mix. Although, I still have doubts regarding presence of live drums on the album?! No, offense to JP’s abilities to play blast beats/hyper blast beats (whosoever has seen him live, would agree with me!).

DR sound reminds me of ‘Prometheus’ era by the mighty Emperor to an extent. However, this is also too big a statement, moving parallel, may be the right way to describe it. With that album Emperor had broken a shell of a typical scandinavian sound, by infusing newer progressive elements and powerish riffs and vocal turnarounds. DR show similar aspirations on this album. But, their success rate quotient will be answered best by review conclusion. So better not jump onto it. The interludes and background keyboards are best wedged on ‘dreams of the dead’ (track2), ‘frozen potrait’ (track10) and ‘spirit of the mystic mountain’ (track 6). Although I feel they have gone a little over board with keyboard use. I personally had wanted it to be less loud. Moreover the choruses with all the guest backups are a little off tune and turnout to be an unhealthy mismatch, these are sadly illustrated on ‘Apocalyptic dawn’ (track3). Even the biggest symphonic black metal heroes ‘Dimmu Borgir’ would jerk away from such experiments, and keep it as much unadulterated. Nevertheless, it’s the bands vision of construction; unmatched top-notch production gives it a one above. But this isn’t a saving grace for matters look a little confused; it appears patched by different genres.

Pick it to believe me. Hard work has surely paid-off, but not just.