Black Chalice - Prayers for Our Lord and Saviour [Demo] (2011, Self-released)

So here we are again. This is the second time I'm reviewing Black Chalice, the first time being the second demo "Years of Flame". This demo, "Prayers for Our Lord and Saviour", is Black Chalice's first demo and was unleashed upon mankind in 2011. Black Chalice is but one of many projects by Patrick Hasson, who is also behind the atmospheric black metal act Auspicium, which I have also reviewed in the past.

In my previous review of Black Chalice I noted how the music, though often being labeled as death/doom metal, bore significant hints of black and funeral doom metal, especially in the long, drawn out sequences with little variation. Though the same can generally be said about Black Chalice at this earlier point I detect a much more distinct nod towards death metal than I did on their later material, even if the two demos share one track, Infallibility of Semen.

Though Hasson has been musically active years before the creation of Black Chalice and this demo it does have that certain tinge of uncertainty. You get the feeling that you're not quite sure what the idea of the band is, what kind of music Hasson wants to create. This creates room for a few surprises here and there, but in the end most of the demo consists of guitar tracks distorted beyond belief and unvaried drumtracks. The speed of the drums and tremolo-picked guitars gives the music a lot of momentum, but it sort of lacks the intensity that I would normally associate with such speeds, and often I see this momentum wasted on sudden stops that annoy me immensely.

My last encounter with Black Chalice yielded a score of 6/10. This time though we're ending up with a 5/10 score. This is simply because the music doesn't sound very cultivated, and when you've listened to newer material by Black Chalice you know that this is merely a prototype for the music yet to come. It's easy to see how the band moved from this gritty, heavily distorted sound to its newer, more ripened state, and I got to say that I much prefer the newer material to this.

Tracklist:
1. King of No World
2. Infallibility of Semen
3. A New Earth and No Heaven

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