Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Virgin Steele
Label: SPV Records
Released: 2010
Running time: 76:22
Rating: 4.5/5
The new album from the “savage power” metallers, the one-of-a-kind Virgin Steele, is called “The Black Light Bacchanalia”, and it’s another conceptual stone in the mosaic built under the baton of the band’s mastermind: multi-instrumentalist, singer, composer, “verse-smith” and visionary David DeFeis.
The new record is 100% Virgin Steele through and through, yet it also opens a new chapter on the band’s charted musical path. We can safely say Virgin Steele have never made an album this multifaceted and varied. What’s more, we can say the same about how complex it is in terms of pure songwriting. Some stretches of this album are so twisting and turning that we’re talking about a level of complexity that’s flirting almost dangerously with the “progressive” label. This is an album that doesn’t go straight into your ears but demands time and patience. But once the listener makes peace with its vibe and its unique atmosphere, they find a new love (at first sight!). That’s beyond question. Virgin Steele are a one-of-a-kind outfit. They always were and always will be. You either love them or hate them. There’s no middle ground.
On “The Black Light Bacchanalia”, the ever-expansive David Defeis, despite his bold drive for maximum variety and complexity in the compositions, managed to find an excellently balanced middle ground. It combines riff-driven rawness, one of the band’s trademarks and part of their recognizable sound (it simply has to be there when we talk about the power “savagery” of Virgin Steele), with a tangible counterweight in the keyboard arrangements. He pulled it off in a way that keeps the album’s red thread intact at every single moment. The motifs are laid out so that they link up with each other compactly and compatibly. So the fear of motif fragmentation and of a hard-to-crack album, which the thought of too much musical experimenting in such long compositions might stir up, is totally unfounded!
Production-wise, DeFeis has once again delivered a very lively album. The riffs here still boast plenty of rawness. That makes them even more effective at creating, across the whole record, that proper heavy metal curtain, loaded with gloom, dusk and thick fog, the kind that stirs a sense of looming doom and agony. The drama element is strongly emphasized and masterfully showcased. No doubting DeFeis on that front. The guy is a seasoned old fox and knows how to handle himself in the studio.
DeFeis is once again a true vocal chameleon. In that respect too, “The Black Bacchanalia” is a new milestone, since no previous Virgin Steele album has seen this much vocal experimentation. From angelic clean vocals to pagan savagery driven by vocal fury, the songs are again packed with all kinds of screams that do a lot to bring the album’s intended mood closer to the listener. It’s interesting that the opening track By The Hammer Of The Zeus doesn’t reveal right away what the album has to offer. Mostly because of the chorus, which likes to nod to Virgin Steele’s earlier work in its melodies. But the less exciting start is made up for by far more interesting songs. Some of the textures are so complex that Virgin Steele actually surprise us this time. The second half of the album is even more thrilling in this inspired, creative sense, especially when we hit the bundle of longer compositions such as The Orpheus Taboo (for Virgin Steele it features some previously uncharacteristic textures, and so it boldly puts the element of surprise front and center), To Crown Them With Halos (the centerpiece and the most dynamic composition), the album’s title track and an intense finale. The ballad The Torture’s Of The Damned, placed in the middle of the album, is a mild attempt at recreating the ballad mood of Child Of Desolation from the album “The House Of Athreus Act. I” (1999), except that here the guitar work is far more active and put to better use.
Speaking of guitar, I should say that this time David Pursino is actively involved throughout. Across all 76 minutes. This excellent guitarist and musical oddball carries the main share when it comes to the branching, richly layered motifs of one of the most progressively conceived Virgin Steele albums of their career. Pursino drops plenty of guitar ornaments at the motif transitions, and the compositions get an extra boost of glory when Pursino’s characteristic solos, recognizable from a mile away, kick in. Pursino is especially inspired and expressive this time.
Given the horribly sterile and unfortunate drum sound of the previous album “The Visions Of Eden” (2006), when DeFeis, due to financial limits, even resorted to programming the double bass drum pedal, this time Frank Gilchriest is behind the kit all the way through. The drumming is alive and dynamic, like it hasn’t been at Virgin Steele in a long time, and that’s another important piece in the mosaic that earns the plus points for calling “The Black Light Bacchanalia” another top-notch Virgin Steele product. Top-notch in the sense that DeFeis and company really thought of every detail and separated and polished them to the studio perfection David DeFeis is known for anyway.
Let’s quickly touch on the concept too. The title, which comes from Greek mythology, could go something like this: “A black orgy dedicated to the god Bacchus”. In other words, “the crazy life”. DeFeis takes us through various historical periods, exploring the destruction of paganism through the doom of priestesses, goddesses and prophetesses, who were all brutally murdered, starting with Lilith (To Crown Them With Halos), which suggests that the concepts of the new album and “The Visions Of Eden” are linked. The eradication of paganism is supposedly tied to the deliberate murders of priestesses and prophetesses, the final extermination of the feminine principle in divine figures. This “ordering” of religion into “one” religion is reflected today in fundamentalisms. Not just in the realm of religious belief, but in all spheres of life. A song like The Orpheus Taboo, meanwhile, is a challenge to the one and only God, which means the new album also touches on rebellion. Rebellion against uniformity, which is certainly a topical bone to chew on in the new millennium too. Just look at the cover and it’s not hard to spot the symbols of paganism depicted on it, belonging to different cultures from different historical periods of the human era. So it’s no vain mistake by the cover artist, but a clear intent to bring the message closer to the album’s consumers.
The album closes with two longer compositions. First comes Necropolis (He Answers Them With Death), whose hymn-like, pompous chorus will especially win over power metal fans, and after it Eternal Regret, set in a mid-tempo and loaded with extraordinary melody full of melancholy, realization, regret and forgiveness. Both songs are new vivid foldouts, and they bring the album to its absolute atmospheric peak in the closing stretch.
“The Black Light Bacchanalia” is an album for all the loyal Virgin Steele fans. Fans of this unique band couldn’t wish for a more beautiful record. At the same time, the band takes a new evolutionary step, because with it Virgin Steele offer their most ambitious achievement so far. Not so much in terms of message as in the approach to shaping the compositions. These boast a degree of variety and dynamism that no previous Virgin Steele album has had. And that’s also direct proof that Virgin Steele keep maturing artistically, that creative inspiration still clings to them and can still surprise, seduce and thrill the listener. All that’s left is one wish: that Virgin Steele finally show up on a European tour, which would be the first real one since 2001.
Lineup
David DeFeis – vocals, keyboards
Edward Pursino – guitar
Joshua Block – bass
Frank Gilchriest – drums
Production
David DeFeis
Tracklist
1. By The Hammer Of Zeus
2. Pagan Heart
3. The Bread Of Wickedness
4. The Orpheus Taboo
5. In A Dream Of Fire
6. Nepenthe
7. Necropolis (He Answers Them With Death)
8. To Crown Them With Halos Parts 1 & 2
9. The Tortures Of The Damned
10. The Black Light Bacchanalia (The Age That Is To Come)
11. Eternal Regret
