Review Summary: I... love you too much to condemn you.
Ordo Dracul is the finished product of a black magick cauldron brew that took over 600 years of eternal darkness to create. It took 666 years in fact and the people responsible for constructing this okkult nvctar ov the unholy dragon priests were a bunch of sexy Eastern European goddesses who long foresaw the arrival of Darkthrone and Bathory. The ingredient profile itself is pretty simple. Take some grim vampiric movies like Vampyr, Dracula and Nosferatu and throw them into the pot so they can extinguish the light. Find 1000 people pure of heart, punch them in the face and steal their souls so you can hand-roll them into one obnoxiously bright ball of energy and then inject it with a calculated dose of kult black metal riffs and atmosphere afterwards. Conjure up some Summoning herbs while adding one whole Keanu Reeves to add flavor and texture. Top it off with some Kate Beckinsale fragrance and the brew should be left alone in the murkiest most desolate graveyard to formulate.
Vampyric Blood is a one man black metal band hailing from the bestial metal motherland known as Finland. Taking cues from all things that involve Satan, chalices, orgies, bloodsucking, death, Brad Pitt, Gary Oldman, immortality, Satan, pale skin, Satan and beautiful sparkly people, Vampyric Blood create a brooding atmospheric thriller of an album with Ordo Dracul. This album is a great display of the often maligned "one man black metal" troupe that has plagued the genre for a long time. Lord of Shadow's abilities as a musician should appeal to all you lonely romantics out there who want to #feeltheimmortalfeelsofasoulessbutbeautifulmonster butcantbecauseyoureapatheticlosermortal. All seven of the songs performed here burst with emotional intensity and lulling melancholy while still being kvlt as *** with the grim, tragically abandoned mausoleum atmosphere. The caustic aggression stemming from the vocals, guitars and grim production is interspersed with a dense layer of keyboards and organ effects which helps give the music a hazy, oppressive feel. Like if Dracula forced you to listen to Hawthorne Heights with his mind control and you suddenly feel exhausted all of a sudden. The music has a dreamy and gloomy shadow over it and it is that impending dread of being consumed by a coven of Ghastly's and Haunter's that makes this record so damn captivating.
As I said before the production is pretty raw but it doesn't detract from the listening experience thanks in part to the album's propensity to consonantly delve into the haunting theatrics that can only be forged from desolate solitude. The guitars are expertly sharpened riff spears that will poke through your flesh like a pissed off honey badger smelling douchebag blood for the first time. Vocals are grim and hoarse although plenty of viking metal sounding OOOOOOOOOOOOOHs!!!!!!!!!!! and WHOOOOOOOOOOOs!!!!!!!! can be heard in the background. The cleans and the harsh vox combine to form a ethereal sound that manages to outsexy Kate Beckinsale walking around in latex. Drums are thundering and fierce. Bass is nonexistent. The keys and organ effects are as funereal as they come. The vocals and instruments come together as one to sound dark and brutal and filled with hatred. Until the light takes us we shall dine in the dark.
Ordo Dracul is kind of flying under the radar which is kind of wyrd because this is a record of substantial grimness, substantial grimness that I know would appeal to my fellow legionnaires of all things that are dark and metal. Do me a favor my sons and listen to Ordo Dracul. Listen to it, love to it. Die to it.
