After thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that this here album is the first time when I listen to a Black Metal band that is almost directly influenced by VENOM's musical characteristics. These characteristics aren't merely the themes of the underworld but much more like the sound production, especially the guitars, which I estimated as pretty much identical, and plenty of others that run through the material such as the riffing and some of the vocal orientation. Nonetheless, this Italian band that goes by the name of DISGUISE is still a second wave style of a Black Metal band therefore their music is far more intense than what the Brits have been doing for years, but it will be easy to figure who is the chicken and who is the egg.

DISGUISE is certainly not new at their own local or the worldwide scene. "Second Coming", released via their new label My Kingdom Music and it's their fourth effort so far. I have to admit that beside the VENOM like features that I found, this is no common Black Metal. Not that it left me with unanswered questions, yet I sent me to various directions that the band wanted to show. A few tracks were quite normal for Black Metal but those were outnumbered. I liked the dynamic nature of the song writing. Nearly nothing here is similar to the next. "Claustrophobic Fate" and "Repressed Rage", tracks that I found myself banging my head to, weren't pure Black Metal at all. I believe that DISGUISE didn't want to hold on to their early 90s feel and went on searching how to develop their material. The end results brought over aspects of Thrash, Heavy, Doom, Death and even a bit Death N' Roll, of course under a blackened cloud.

On the other hand, DISGUISE might have showed the other chick in their diverse music, yet I felt that "Second Coming" didn't star as expected. There were weird moments on the theatrical "I Am Alone", and the VENOM oriented "The Origin Of The Unknown" that sounded stale while containing a large number of ideas that just weren't arranged properly with all the potential around them. In the case of the rest of the tracks, DISGUISE created what they call as "hateful", which is pretty much the common stuff that almost any Black Metal band produces. There were a few great moments like on "To Dominate" or "Second Coming", but in overall, sometimes I felt bored.

As I mentioned earlier, "Second Coming" isn't your average Black Metal album. DISGUISE stepped out of the box and produced a solid output. There is a great potential in what they do and I think that it's just the beginning.