Testimony of the Abominable

Well, this isn't exactly bad, but there's nothing to really recommend it either. Balmog play a very staid, safe variety of Black Metal, tightly wedded to the sound of the Second Wave without any of the awesomeness that should really entail. Just because I can tell their influences are in the right place doesn't mean they do a good job of following them. This is well-recorded, well-played, and as boring as shit. The band never breaks out of their stodgy apeing and does anything remotely interesting, and this is like a slurry of ideas you heard on 50,000 albums before all blended together into a thin paste. Nothing jumps out as awful, but it has no substance at all.