This is vicious, powerful extreme metal from Temple of Baal, a French band with a presence in many other outfits in that incestuous black metal scene, including connections to Hell Militia, Glorior Belli, and Antaeus. At first (when you listen to it through without devoting your full attention to it) it seems that with Lightslaying Rituals they really aren’t stretching themselves, but give it a chance and it’s an album with a distinctive voice, and kindred spirits with some unexpected figures.

The sound here is big and crunching; more so than is common for a black metal act. Their guitar tone often becomes very death metal, with Bloodbath popping into my head as a comparison more frequently than more obvious blackened acts. This is a likeness heigntened by Amduscias’s noticeable resemblance to Mikael Akerfeldt, vocally. A track like Hate is my Name flails rabidly, almost like early Deicide, in attitude rather than precise sound. At times, this deathly pallor leads them to some decidedly surprising moments. Black Sun of the Damned, with its stomping mid-tempo riffing has a very strong sense of the Red Harvest about it, as well as momentary flights of guitar melody that recall Opeth.

Unexpected elements such as these add depth to an album that would otherwise run the risk of monotony. When they kick off into a more familiar black metal whirlwind, they are powerful and effective. Dead Cult, for example, has another of those thundering grooves to open it, but accelerates into a pounding tremolo blast that is brimming over with angry, blasphemous energy. But it continues to be a multi-layered song, with the re-emergence of our opening clunkery becoming distinguishable through the blizzard later on, and an element of melodic colour being drawn in surprisingly subtly.

So it is an album that is a little cleverer than may be assumed, with various influences from various realms of metal. There are even extremely rare sightings of a slammin’ hardcore sensibility, as with the rhythmic guitar squealing noises on Poisoned Words. Finishing about my fifth listen-through, the band that Lightslaying Rituals most suggests to me is Destroyer 666, albeit it a version with their roots in the corpsepainted scene. It sees itself more as “extreme metal”, free to draw in and discard elements from the trinity formula of death, black and thrash as it sees fit. If anything backs this up, it is the closer, Blessing of Blackfire, which could very nearly be that band. The flickering fury of its opening tremolo riffing, the anthemic vocal roars, and the melodic wallop of the guitar lines, all conspire to confirm the likeness. All in all, a highly worthy album, with both power and intelligence.