The side Project of the members of the Portuguese band Moonspell “Hermeticum” is an album that uses doom and black metal as the foundation of something dark and mystic; Fernando Ribeiro’s vocals are at times terrifying.

There is no doubt that Ribeiro’s dark tones and the lyrics focusing in Satanism and the dark arts gave this one a push into the direction of black metal, still some chorus manage to mix a couple of doom sounds that gave the album a certain rarity and freshness.

Good guitar work, with a couple of solo sections and a few riffs that sound like death metal, there is also some keyboards thrown into the mix; the general sound is not fast, is dark, depressing and why not terrifying.

At some points Daemonarch gets a little too familiar to some of Moonspell’s heavy material, but manages to stay inside black metal with the particular vocals this genre demands, the doom sound can also be heard with some of the guitar work when they get a little too melancholic, the drums from time to time have the same effect. Hermeticum is not a brutal album, but possesses a violent environment; sometimes it can very well be described as a horror movie soundtrack.

Many of the keyboard parts resemble the ones on an Agathodaimon record, not as well elaborated as in the Germans records but it possesses the same environments.

The best thing about this record is that it can be enjoyed be fans of black, death and doom metal alike, because of the good bleeding of the many factors in it. You should definitely check out this record, and why not buy it!.