It has been such a long time since I listened to a new symphonic black metal record and the fact that LUNA AD NOCTUM hail from Poland aroused my curiosity for the band's material. "Hypnotic Inferno" is their fourth album, of well-polished, modern Black Metal with symphonic elements. The driving force in the album is the guitar riffs that emit the necessary darkness for the drums to deploy and the bass to nail each note. The synths are supplementary and enhance the final result but they never take a leading role in the compositions.

The opening track, "In Hypnosis", is representative of the style of the band that is having a heavy metal approach with rhythm breaks while after half a minute blast beats and guitar scratching comes in. The style of the band reminded me of DIMMU BORGIR's amazing albums "Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia" or "Death Cult Armageddon" without the keyboard exaggeration which also could be very close to the sound of SATYRICON in "Volcano". "Fear Technique", the intro is on the atmospheric Black Metal (which to some people is known as depressive black metal) until the blast-beats take over and the song gets to more evil and darkened paths. On "Abnormal Pain" the lead in the beginning could easily be one of ROTTING CHRIST's songs but the band is quickly changing the song into something of their own. In the second half of the record has more rough songs with lots of blast beats and omitting the atmospheric black metal elements.

"Hypnotic Inferno" is a record that belongs to the conventional style of Black Metal that has a shiny production and is not recorded on a cassette player covered under a bucket. The songs in "Hypnotic Inferno" go between three and five minutes and the band is not overdoing it with their compositions. The atmospheric elements are giving a nice flavor to their songs, but might disappoint the listener who wants a pure evil feeling, should he or she omits to pay attention to misinterpret the musical style of the band. As a big plus of the record I would consider the excellent sound and playing of the bass, as in the beginning I thought there somehow Steve DiGiorgio was taking care of it.

LUNA AD NOCTUM has delivered a symphonic Black Metal record that have left me quite satisfied and made me look back into this genre that I was overlooking for quite some time. The band is filtering their influences from the leading bands of the genre and turns them into their own sound and style. I would totally suggest "Hypnotic Inferno" to the fans of the genre.