Band:	Dark Funeral
Album:	The Secrets Of The Black Arts
Style:	Black metal
Release date:	January 28, 1996
Guest review by:	dark awakening

Disc I
01. The Dark Age Has Arrived
02. The Secrets Of The Black Arts
03. My Dark Desires
04. The Dawn No More Rises
05. When Angels Forever Die
06. The Fire Eternal
07. Satan's Mayhem
08. Shadows Over Transylvania
09. Bloodfrozen
10. Satanic Blood [Von cover]
11. Dark Are The Path To Eternity (A Summoning Nocturnal)

Disc II [2007 Regain Records reissue]
01. Shadows Over Transylvania
02. The Dawn No More Rises
03. The Secrets Of The Black Arts
04. Satan's Mayhem
05. Bloodfrozen
06. My Dark Desires
07. Dark Are The Path To Eternity (A Summoning Nocturnal)
08. The Fire Eternal
09. Call From The Grave

After a good mini-cd published in 1994, one of the most malicious bands came back with a beautifull full length called "The Secrtes of The Black Arts" (great title and catchy artwork of the cover that represents a sect coming from an ancient temple carrying a kind of coffin). Eleven songs of pure strength, devotion to Satan and screams that we had never heard from other black metal bands; Themgoroth dedicated odes to his lord like no one had done before and Blackmoon wrote some of the best lyrics in all the BM world.

Songs like "My Dark Desires" and "The Dawn No More Rises" are really catchy, though they're in a black metal album we can perfectly hear the chorus. The voice of Themgoroth is great, it never disappoints, it's never repetitive; one of the best BM screams ever. The singer's voice changes from a very- well done scream to a kind of growl (or deeper scream) in the song "Satanic Blood" (VON cover). The structure of this CD is quite simple, all the songs are made of one or two main riffs with the same fast notes for both the guitars; during the riff one of the guitar, in the case of the titletrack Lord Ahriman's one, starts its own part always standing by the riffing in a really catchy way. Though there aren't solos this album is always good, the ability of the band is this; they managed perfectly to take the listener into a tempest in the infernal abyss for 40 minutes of mere Black Metal like the Norwegian masters have taught us.

This is a great album, from which a lot of bands have taken ideas, but this band is unique and is still making fuckin noise in the name of the strong power of BM. To all the Black metallers: "This is a cd to have!"