Order of the Ebon Hand - XV: The Devil (2005)

While their 1997 debut The Mystic Path to the Netherworld was about as mediocre as European black metal albums could get in that decade of expansion and exploration, subsequently dashing all my geek-driven fantasies of Magic the Gathering derived extremity, I'll have to admit that the Order of the Ebon Hand spent the next eight years honing in their chops. XV: The Devil is everything that album wished it might have been, and then some. In fact, this is an admittedly tremendous effort all around, precisely balancing both the tenets of wrath and variation into smoldering and thoughtful visions of sadism and fell majesty. It trumps the debut in every conceivable category, from the strong production values to the thrilling, ecstatic mirth of the consistent songwriting.

The album hits like a brick-truck of blasphemy, through the sheer walls of driving chords being wrought above Lethe's thundering beats. "For Marchiosas" and "To Alloces" might not be the riffiest black metal tracks you've heard, but the patterns evoked are potent and immersive, and the symphonic elements that hover at the edge of the mix are well integrated into the storming metallic force, building tremendous levels of adrenaline excitement. The leads are moody and eloquent, the vocals ripe with hostility (if tonally cliche to a number of Swedish and Norse acts), and the band is quite competent in breaking velocity for some slower fare that is just as dynamic. "Gateway to Silence" bridges from a creepy, haunted ambiance into double bass driven chaos; "Eibon" plods along with a firm punctuality, female vocals drifting as a psychotic background narrative; while "Spellbound" phases between cleaner guitars to swells of violence.

Hell, the finale, "(You Are) The Gleaming King" is perhaps the most epic on the album, with an abundance of swaggering melodies. Not a track goes by throughout that doesn't have at least something memorable to offer, even if the band don't win points for innovation or originality. XV: The Devil is merely a well written exercise in blackened ballast, with a rich and full bodied mix that brings it in line with some of the larger named symphonic black metal groups like Dimmu Borgir, Emperor and so forth. Surprisingly, the style itself is not a major deviation from their ill-fated debut, they just pull it all together into something enduring. Even the lyrics have come along, chocked with evocative imagery and a stimulating meter, while engaging the fantastical concepts the band's very name evokes (though they're sadly not dealing with the card game).

Order of the Ebon Hand is hardly an A-lister for the style, and unlikely to ever attain such a status, but there is no doubting the massive strides they've made here. If you're a fan of well plotted, harrowing versatility in the vein of the Norwegian acts I mentioned above, or perhaps the Australians Nazxul (specifically their sophomore Iconoclast), then this is worth tracking down.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10] (grant me the will of the arrogant)

http://www.myspace.com/theorderoftheebonhandofficial

Order of the Ebon Hand - The Mystic Path to the Netherworld (1997)

Order of the Ebon Hand might just be the first metal band of note to have drawn its moniker from a Magic: the Gathering playing card, but the novelty of that fact is not without its cost. That cost is the one of the ugliest fucking album covers I have ever witnessed in my 30 whatever years with all of the medium and its subgenres. Who designed this awful, stringy abstraction of medusa? I realize the band's name is lengthy, but why the terrible choice in horizontal and vertical scrawl? Perhaps these Greeks wanted to insure that we'd use our aural sense to its fullest by blinding us and voiding us of any distraction, but The Mystic Path to the Netherworld is such a visual travesty that it nearly withered off my nose and various other appendages too...

But surely the music would redeem it, right? Not quite. The Mystic Path to the Netherworld is pretty indistinct from most of the second or third tier European black metal in the 90s, joining such names as Hecate Enthroned or Ancient (beyond their first album) in the footfalls of far mightier acts. Straight, driving black with an excess of blast beats that never at any time feel compelling or extreme, with ghoulish, resonant vocals and the occasional use of keyboards to provide an orchestrated dimension above and beyond the core mediocrity. The band also uses acoustic segues (as in "Under a Pale Moonlight"), but they're rarely catchy and often the product of sloppy transitions, nor do the cleaner, Gothic spoken vocals ever help. Once in awhile you'll get a passable, aggressive tune like "Fallen Hierarchy" or "Behold the Sign of a New Era", but neither even hints at the memorable craftsmanship of their many superior peers. I won't even dwell on the terribly bloated "Tears in Red", nearly 11 minutes of tedium with a few sparse, atmospheric moments of real weight.

Unfortunately, everything about Order of the Ebon Hand (at this point) reeks of 'me too' metal, and 1997 was the year that the black levee was beginning to sag under the flood of no talents and doppelgangers. Not that this is total shit for a debut, but there is simply nothing about it to recommend it above anything else, and it lacks even the more distinct Greek characteristics of its countrymen. The production is average, the vocals average, the riffs largely forgettable, and the variation betrayed by the band’s general inability to transition effectively through tempos and contrasts. The Mystic Path to the Netherworld was tapped out of mana before it entered the match.

Verdict: Indifference [5/10]

http://www.myspace.com/theorderoftheebonhandofficial