Band:	Reverorum Ib Malacht
Album:	Likpredikan
Style:	Dark Ambient, Black metal
Release date:	February 13, 2006
A review by:	Lucas

01. Den Swenska Gudstjensten
02. Path To Yirah

In 2005, the world suffered a tremendous blow. A group of religious fanatics unleashed a curse upon mankind, a curse so malicious no sinner could hear of it without losing his sanity forever. [url= http://www.metalstorm.net/pub/review.php?review_id=7453]What Do You Think Of The Old God, We Call Him Judas?[/url] was the question - a question that desired no answer - that crept through the underground. And in its wake, sonic vistas of madness and damnation followed.

A year later, the same group of people, also known as Reverorum Ib Malacht, released another demo. Likpredikan was the name of the sophomore curse and, in all honesty, it blows donkey balls. Well, alright, it doesn't literally blow donkey balls, but it is massively, highly, incredibly disappointing. It is also a change of style.

You see, where What Do You Think... was mostly an indescribable mix of genres and, with a bit of imagination, a metal demo, Likpredikan is nothing of the sort. RiB chose to follow the path of dark ambient and offers deeply resonating, pulsing bass drum rhythms and alien noises. "Den Swenska Gudstjensten" consists pretty much entirely of these two aspects for it's full length (a whopping 47:13 minutes by the way). Its aim is abundantly clear, but the song never manages to capture, hypnotize or mesmerize. It flows along nicely and on a few occasion, it picks up in intensity, but it rarely becomes more than 'just background music'.

"Path To Yirah" relies more on the alien noises instead of the pulsing bass, but is still basically the continuation of "Den Sweska Gudstjensten". Metallic noises, gloomy synths, hollow echoes and distant church bells, it's all there. Well, all... what I miss in this demo, and what was so readily available on What Do You Think..., is the horrific atmosphere. And without it, Likpredikan is nothing but a futile endeavour and a complete and utter failure when it comes to scaring the listener. It's nothing but easy-going background ambient.

If you want to dive into the adventure that is Reverorum Ib Malacht, take the utmost care to start with What Do You Think.... Likpredikan is, most likely, not of interest for the average black/doom/noise metaller, due to a severe lack of extreme music. There may be a whole league of hardcore ambient listeners out there that disagree with me, but that's hardly my problem, is it?