1. Promeathea -Thy Darkest Mask of Surreality
2. The Crimson Thorns
3. A Graven Winter
4. To Feed Upon Thy Dreams
5. An Ode for a Haunted Wood
6. Through Spellbinding Branches


Subject: Review of Hecate Enthroned 'Upon Promeathean Shores'


Ave, and here's today's review. "Upon Promeathean Shores" is a mini CD, but it has 6 tracks (including an intro and outro) and lasts for just over 30 minutes. Not bad for a mini CD, especially when you consider that some bands release full length albums of a similar length! This release is on Blackened Records, and was released in June.

Hecate Enthroned are a black metal band from the good ol' U.K. At least, I assume they're from the U.K... I'm about 99 percent certain. Unfortunetly there is no contact address or anything. It is packaged very nicely, though... complete with band photos (unfortunetly no lyrics though, apart from to about one verse of one song). There's corpse paint, there's fire, there's haunted woods, and the Baphomet adorns the band's logo (so I presume they're from the Anton LaVey school of thought).

The music here is fucking excellent. I was really pleased with this MCD... the music is top notch, the production is very, very good, the songs are around the 6 to 7 minute length... all in all, a very worthy purchase. BUT... if the name "Hecate Enthroned" wasn't on the CD cover, you could easily mistake this for Cradle Of Filth. The similarities between the two bands are astonishingly strong... there's the atmospheric synths and insane high pitched vocals, for a start. Check out the last minute of the song "To Feed Upon Thy Dreams" for instance.

If this doesn't bother you too much, then definitly check Hecate Enthroned out. I hope that their subsequent releases will show a bit more originality, although I appreciate that it's difficult to be totally original... almost everything sounds like something else when it comes to music, no matter what the genre. Basically, I heartily recommend this MCD, and I very much doubt that you'll be disappointed. The band are very talented, and this is a marvellous debut of atmospheric black metal.

Rating: 8 and a half, maybe even 9 out of 10. Definitly a band to watch.


Tracklisting