As the designated “Black Metal Guy” here at The Goat Review, it falls upon me to take even the most milquetoast of Black Metal releases. Notable examples include the 80 minute long snoozefest Daughters of Sophia, and more recently the exhaustive newest release by Midnight Odyssey. A new challenger for “most boring” has entered the arena, however, and its name is Demoncy. An old school Black Metal band from the USA, Demoncy had a brief period of activity in the 1990s before vanishing for the better part of a decade until the early 2010s. Black Star Gnosis, their first outing on the modern juggernaut label of the underground, Dark Descent Records, was originally an album that intrigued me as I had not heard of this band prior to seeing the announcement in the first place. Hoping this could be another Mortuary Drape scenario, where a much-loved underground band went silent for some time before releasing a set of modern classics, I eagerly picked this up from the promo bin. What I found, however, was mostly disappointment.
In the endless ocean of no-name Black Metal bands out in the metalsphere, it takes at least a modicum of effort to establish yourself as a band worth following above the rest of the rabble. Unfortunately, Demoncy seem to not want to do that at all, as this album may very well take the award for “Least Interesting Black Metal Album” I’ve heard this year. The first major issue is the fact that three of its nine songs are completely skippable pieces, each an ambient track with interspersed demonic noises scattered throughout. The only one that stands out at all is “Syzygy of Unholy Trinity”, and that’s due to its vaguely MENA feel. It’s still too long of a song, as all three of these are, being four-plus minutes each, when they easily could have been one minute or shorter. The other main issue that plagues this album is the almost indistinguishable other songs. Case in point: “Ipsissimus of Shadows” and “De Mysterium Noctis” start off in such a similar fashion that I first thought somehow the band put two copies of the same song in different parts of the album. Each song feels formulaic in that it consists of three to five minutes of different simplistic Black Metal infused with small hints of Death Metal riffs. The production doesn’t exactly do Black Star Gnosis any favors either, as the guitars are pushed to the front, the drums are shoved to the back, the bass is almost non-existent, and the vocals are a mere whisper when they could be a more powerful shriek. Mercifully, the album is short. Demoncy’s shortest release by far, it has the saving grace to not extend any song more than five minutes. I cannot recommend this album, as there are plenty of other Black Metal bands that anyone could listen to over this one.
