Band:	Ordinul Negru
Album:	Faustian Nights
Style:	Black metal
Release date:	July 2018

01. Approaching The Door Of Damnation
02. Killing Tristan
03. The Apocalypse Through A Hierophant's Eye
04. Oculta Kormos
05. Elder Magik
06. Faceless Metamorphosis
07. Sol Omnia Regit
08. Faustian Nights

Would a prolific musician's output increase in quality with experience or become bloated and generic? Let's take Ordinul Negru for example.

Ordinul Negru is one of the many projects of Emanuel "Fulmineos" Matlak. You may have heard of Dara or Argus Megere or Kultika; these are only the most well-known and still active, but some of them go as far back as 1996. He also briefly played with Negură Bunget. Ordinul Negru was another one of those generic one-man-band projects from 2004 up until 2015, when it suffered a complete makeover by transforming into an actual band and releasing Sorcery Of Darkness. In the meantime, the previous vocalist split from the band and a new guitarist and a new bassist joined. And now we have Faustian Nights.

I just have to warn you that if you're looking for something genre-bending or forward-thinking, you're approaching this wrong. This is a band whose name literally means "The Black Order". While pre-band releases may have been unlistenably raw and kvlt, the quality has thoroughly increased in the meantime, both songwriting and production-wise (the same can be said about his other black metal band, Argus Megere). The songs are quite melodic for black metal and there is less emphasis on atmosphere building and more on riffs and structures. It is quite clear that a lot of this great songwriting has been due to both the experience of a lot of those involved and the lineup change.

Except for the first track, which is the only one recorded with the old vocalist, S, the rest once again bring Fulmineos as the main vocalist, which does make Ordinul Negru lose some of the identity that the previous album had that separated it from his other projects, and right now three of the four members have also been on Argus Megere's Veii. Faustian Nights still has a bit of its own identity, the songs being a bit shorter and less atmosphere-focused and at times even quite upbeat. So, for a change, other than the first S lead track, there's also the the album's closer and title track, which features Dordeduh's Edmond on tulnic and vocals from Daniel Neagoe of Eye Of Solitude. And the album is sprinkled with moments that set it apart from a generic black metal album, like the oriental break in the last minutes of "Faceless Metamorphosis" or the really odd piano on "Sol Omnia Regit" or the surprisingly upbeat "Oculta Kormos".

So while some of the songs would likely still would fit right in a demo if they were recorded in the '90s, others would sound out of place because of how much the songwriting increased and I'm glad we get to hear these songs in 2018 when Ordinul Negru has the production behind them to give them the impact they need.