Virgin Steele
The Black Light Bacchanalia

David DeFeis is musically dead. If anyone had doubts about the direction the band took in "Visions of Eden," with the latest "The Black Light Bacchanalia," these concerns become monstrous realities. Where have the epic metal rides that characterized works like "Noble Savage" and the two splendid chapters of "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" gone? Where has DeFeis's voice gone? What happened to the power and importance of Pursino's six-string? Questions that are difficult to answer, especially after listening to this work.

Coming to terms with this ruinous fall is a complex task. Repeated listens (also due to the lengthy runtime) weren't enough to clear the haze surrounding The Black Light Bacchanalia. What you hear doesn't seem to have been born from Virgin Steele. The piano, a beloved instrument of DeFeis, with which he graduated some years ago, is the soul of the album, as well as a shapeless multitude of keyboards and orchestrations that share little common ground with the musical experiences of the combo. Endless chants with riffs repeated endlessly, going nowhere. DeFeis's faint voice, dragged over a mile-long text. The attempt to recreate the dark atmosphere of the concept that animated the previous album fails miserably. If you then focus on "Visions of Eden," a work certainly not exhilarating, you realize that DeFeis's songwriting has reached the end of the line. I don't know if the good old David DeFeis is convinced that heavy and atmospheric tracks are enough to showcase good songwriting choices; the fact remains that, overall, the last cry of the glorious Virgin Steele is a work that exudes strong principles of a forceful diarrhea.

The pompous and pretentious lengthy talks, although well blended in "Visions of Eden," are once again reiterated by DeFeis, who shifts the tone slightly to the soft side, thus abandoning the compositional darkness that characterized the aforementioned album. The first (and the only successful) evidence of this mix of piano, orchestrations, and nothing more, is the opener "By the Hammer of Zeus". From it, one can gather the musical direction of the "new" Virgin Steele and DeFeis's flat vocals, which at times seem breathless behind the microphone. From here on out, right from the start, the album is a pathetic succession of continuous piano note streams upon which rises a series of infinite sounds of excessive pomp, with the barely audible voice, Pursino's guitar which holds as much importance as nothingness and a drum that stands out only for a rather unusual sound...

If "The Bread of Wickedness" tries (unsuccessfully) to accelerate the rhythm, "In a Dream of Fire", "Nepenthe" and many other tracks instead of being dramatic (as they intend to be) show us a band now incapable of putting together convincing pieces. The lack of pathos and edge is too evident to find in some melodic opening here and there the means to sustain an album that never takes off, but rather casts very dark shadows over the future of one of the most influential bands in the American epic metal scene.

The new course of DeFeis and Pursino is now clear: romanticism and refinement established on tracks that are not easily assimilated. The desire to emphasize epicness has however transformed into a substantial lack of ideas, leading the members to reintroduce the not-so-exhilarating material of "Visions of Eden." Talking about metal becomes complicated. The future in the Virgin Steele camp appears heavily clouded...

1. "By The Hammer Of Zeus (And The Wrecking Ball Of Thor)" (8:05)
2. "Pagan Heart" (6:19)
3. "The Bread Of Wickedness" (3:12)
4. "In A Dream Of Fire" (5:56)
5. "Nepenthe (I Live Tomorrow)" (5:20)
6. "The Orpheus Taboo" (7:43)
7. "To Crown Them With Halos Parts I & II" (11:16)
8. "The Black Light Bacchanalia (The Age That Is To Come)" (7:18)
9. "The Torture's Of The Damned" (2:59)
10. "Necropolis (He Answers Them With Death)" (9:08)
11. "Eternal Regret" (9:01)