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Old Man's Child - In Defiance Of Existence review



Reviewer:
8.5

250 users:
8.34
Band: Old Man's Child
Album: In Defiance Of Existence
Style: Symphonic black metal
Release date: January 2003
A review by: Herzebeth


01. Felonies Of The Christian Art
02. Agony Of Fallen Grace
03. Black Seeds On Virgin Soil
04. In Defiance Of Existence
05. Sacrifice Of Vengeance
06. The Soul Receiver
07. In Quest Of Enigmatic Dreams
08. The Underworld Domains
09. Life Deprived

After 3 long years of waiting, Old Man's Child finally released their fifth Full length Album with Jardar in the guitars, Nicholas Barker (Dimmu Borgir) in the drums, and the almighty Galder in the vocals bass and keyboards.

Now about the album per se, it's a good album, the lyrics are about insolence, disobedience, blasphemy, depravity, etc. in short the lyrics have the usual Old Man's Child substance and theme. The drumming is incredible and I mean it, not only because it's fast also because it's very complex and multifaceted. The atmosphere is overwhelming and the execution is great.

The best song in this album must be "Black Seeds On Virgin Soil" or "Agony Of The Fallen Grace", the first one has hard guitar solos (bizarre in the Black Metal world),great riffs, and the best lyrics in the album, the second one has blasting arrangements and the best atmosphere. The fastest song in the album is "The Underworld Domains" with regular Riffs but fast as hell, this song resembles a lot to Old Man's Child earlier work.

The Production and Recording is the best one in the Old Man's Child Career, it has the cleanest sound that a band could ask for, and every instrument can be appreciated clearly and well. The winner in "In Defiance Of Existence" is Shannon Hourigan (artwork responsible), the album cover and artwork is awesome, the best I've seen in this particular genre, it fits incredibly well with the album dark atmosphere and grim mood.

Sure it's not the usual Ultra Fast with no Keyboards Black Metal band but it's different in a good way and the songs are executed incredibly. Now this album is not the best one in the Old Man's Child catalog, if you are a fan you will love this album and cherish it forever, but if you want to hear this band because someone told you it's amazing and you haven't heard anything by them I recommend you to try "The Pagan Prosperity" Old Man's Child best work.

Written by Herzebeth | 29.07.2004




Comments

Comments: 11   Visited by: 151 users
19.07.2006 - 18:32
Doommaker
Account deleted
OLD MANS CHILD MY FAVORITE BLACK METAL BAND, THE FIRST ALBUM I BOUGHT WAS " THE PAGAN PROSPERITY":banger2: IN DEFIANCE OF EXISTENCE IS A GOOD ALBUM, MY FAVORITE SONG AND ONE OF MY FAVORITES " BLACK SEEDS ON VIRGIN SOIL" MEN I LOVE THAT SONG:thumbup:
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20.07.2006 - 10:45
Rating: 8
Xtreme Jax
Psycroptipath
^ Oh I hate it when people write it caps

Anyway, this is a good release by OMC. Clear and good production, dont think i could pick a favourite track of it because they are all excellent songs. Some really neat riffs aswell. An 8 from me.
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Hellcunt Smurf
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28.09.2006 - 06:50
Gefahr
NICK BARKER IS GOD
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METAL UP YOUR ASS!!!!!!
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28.09.2006 - 22:58
Baz Anderson
Staff
yeh, this is one of my favorite black metal albums
Old Man's Child is one of my favorite black metal bands even though i havent listened to them in a long time
but then barring Emperor, i havent listened to any black metal in a long long long time
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23.03.2008 - 00:54
Lowelas OF FIRE
Account deleted
THE DRUMS! ...................wow.
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23.03.2008 - 22:54
Rating: 7
Sunioj
And really awesome riffs, I've always liked Galder's riffwork in this band more than Dimmu.
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06.04.2008 - 05:15
Uirapuru
Liver Failure
great band.. one of the best on melodic black metal. This album is more atmospheric than all the others, and its not bad. To me, its the second best work of the band, behind The Pagan Prosperity,
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member of the true crusade against old school heavy metal, early 80s thrash, NWOBHM, traditional doom, first and second wave black metal, old school death metal, US power metal, 70s prog rock and atmospheric doomsludgestoner. o/
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13.05.2008 - 04:32
Lowelas OF FIRE
Account deleted
@Sunioj: But the later Dimmu Borgir is nothing compared to Old Man's Child . I mean Black Metal really shouldn't be so commercialised, but OMC don't seem too poppy to me at all.
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13.05.2008 - 05:13
Nox Lux
codebreaker
Nice review Herzebeth, very fair, I'd agree with you on all the points on the music. The art's ok, no huge theme creator but fine nonethless.

I actually wish that OMC did Defiance first, and then Pagan Prosperity. It's got that feel to it. Pagan is better, but there's not much wrong with this album. It has a couple of stand out tracks. For me the others blend in a little too much, but the average quality of those songs is still very good, so that's not too much of a complaint considering the nature of melodic bm albums, to be fair.
It's a bit different to what I'm listening to these days in BM. Quite a bit different, so I may be being harsher than when I first picked this album up. Overall I'd say it's a better than average melodic bm album, but not an excellent one.
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][{ ]|/ ][_ "][" -- ][3) ][_ /=|[ [( ][{ -- ][][][ |E[ "][" ]|= ][_

"Thoughts fall in season with the right stand, rake the land
This Autumn's early leafshed a recompense for Summer's wane."
~ Nox Lux
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13.05.2008 - 19:00
Rating: 7
Sunioj
Written by [user id=160] on 13.05.2008 at 04:32

@Sunioj: But the later Dimmu Borgir is nothing compared to Old Man's Child . I mean Black Metal really shouldn't be so commercialised, but OMC don't seem too poppy to me at all.

I definitely agree that later Dimmu doesn't hold a candle to OMC. To me, it's not the fact that Dimmu sound more 'poppy' than OMC, but it's that I genuinely think OMC has more passion, angst or whatever you name it.
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19.06.2008 - 04:48
Rating: 10
Mull666
i agree with justr about every positive comment on this page even if some may seem 'fanboyish' but Old man's child certainly deserves it. for me black metal is all about creating atmosphere and mood in my mind and Galder does this flawlessly. From dispair and misanthropy to voilence and punishment, excellent stuff on most of his albums. Now to the bad part, PP, I-NSI, R666 and IDE all have really low scores!!! i recommend everyone who loves this band and others to see how talented this guy is and ramp up those scores!!! i wanna see more OMC after vermin!!! and still no news KEEP IT METAL
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