After three years since releasing "The Song Remains Not the Same" and four years since "Order of the Black", their last album with new material, BLACK LABEL SOCIETY releases "Catacombs of the Black Vatican". Their 10^th record in their 16 year career, it is the first without Nick "The Evil Twin" Catanese since his departure last year.

BLS' last releases, "The Song Remains Not the Same" and "Unblackened", showed their acoustic side and I expected "Catacombs" to show the heavy side of the band, well I was disappointed...

Not saying this is a bad record, far from it, but after all the previous "soft" releases I was expecting something more aggressive and heavy like "1919 Eternal" or their debut album. "Catacombs" can be described as the middle point between "Order of the Black" and "Unblackened", a balance between heavy and soft.

One bad thing that can be pointed out is the production, in special that of the guitar, it sounds buried beneath the other instruments and it is not the main focus of the songs as it used to be.

This is definitely not their best nor is their worst; it is an okay album with decent material but with nothing truly remarkable about it.