Diabolical Masquerade: Nightwork (1998)

Diabolical Masquerade is the one-man project of Anders Nyström, aka Blakkheim, who was one of the founding members of the gloomy Katatonia as well as Swedish death supergroup Bloodbath.  Diabolical Masquerade is a much more ambitious project, one in which Blakkheim has really been able to spread his creative wings. 

I have previously heard Diabolical Masquerade's Death's Design album, the last of the band's releases to date.  That album was extremely odd.  For one, there was the fact that there were 61 tracks on the album, for a 43 minute long album, but the tracks come together to form one epic song, telling a story similar to the storyline of the Final Destination movies, death stalking people and all.  So it was definitely an intriguing release.  Despite that, I never managed to get any more of the band's releases.

This album is much more straightforward than Death's Design, though that is not to say it is anything close to a standard black metal album.  It is a keyboard-heavy, melodic black metal release.  The keyboard sections have a decidedly gothic flourish to them, combining with the dark atmosphere and ghastly vocals to create a very eerie and spooky-sounding album.  There are occasional spoken word interludes, snippets of a conversation between a woman speaking to a deity she initially thinks is God.  It responds by saying "Do I look like God to you?" 

Next to Death's Design, this is a downright normal album.  But it is still significantly different than most of the rest of the black metal scene by comparison.  Blakkheim masterfully evokes a dark and foreboding atmosphere throughout the album, yet writes some insanely catchy riffs at the same time.  What results is an avante garde take on black metal that captures attention and never lets go.  It tells a story much like the other Diabolical Masquerade album I have heard, but in more of a traditional way.  I think I actually prefer this one to Death's Design, though for much different reasons.