The other day I was driving and was listening on shuffle when Dictum
Audiens, the instrumental intro to Ô Laudate Dominvs came on, I
realized I hadn’t heard this in a really long time so I broke out of
my shuffle and put it on. Glorior Belli are from France, this is their
debut which came out in 2005. I remember that I quite enjoyed it back
then, and that I was disappointed with their subsequent
albums when they moved away from the fairly straight forward black
metal which we get here to their currently more sludgy / southern
rock. Now in 2004 in France Deathspell Omega released Si Monvmentvm
Reqvires, Circvmspice which made quite a splash to put it mildly,
barely a year later this sees the light of day, with superficially
lots of similarities: it’s mid-to-fast paced, has titles and lyrics in
Latin dealing with Satan. All of this to say I’m in no way surprised
that when this came out I was all over it, it’s a solid if not very
ground breaking album. Hearing it again a few times this week it’s
still quite enjoyable (while staying cognizant of the lure of
nostalgia). So if this is an album you snoozed on 16 years ago it very
well might be worth a listen.
Glorior Belli
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