Horrific, terrifying, chilling and blood-curdling; these are the words which immediately sprang to mind upon first hearing the opening of "Empire of the Fallen Angel (Eternal Black Dominion)", the third full-length release from Seattle black metaller's DEMONCY. This is, in fact, a re-recorded, re-issue of a previous album with four extra tracks.

Beginning with the suitably horror-based and incredibly creepy "Invocation to Satan", it's immediately obvious what DEMONCY want to do (As if the name DEMONCY wasn't enough of a clue)- the love and worship of the darker side of nature. The "Invocation..." is little more than that- a slow, gloomy bell tolling, an evil chant and the sound of something possibly being sacrificed. Once the rest of the songs kick in, the faster sections are relentless, the slower parts gloomy and horrible the lyrics all but incomprehensible.

This all, mixed with the corpse paint and fairly stock-black metal clichés does little to excite. The music is exactly what would be expected- blast beat drums, fast guitar riffs and horror aesthetics. The whole thing not only sounds fairly formulaic and tired, but the images are as well- oh look, an unreadable logo- there is no originality or real aspect which makes the album interesting. Each track sounds like the previous and subsequent ones, and exactly like any other black metal band.