Underground metal is often a “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t” playground. Fall in line, play it safe and fail to stand out from the crowd but avoid the slings and arrows, or produce something distinctive and open yourself up for criticism if it doesn’t quite come off (and sometimes, even if it does).
So, credit is due to Eibon Fa Furies for taking the second option and attempting to carve their own way down the blackened crowded path. The Immoral Compass (Code666) has the integrity and confidence of a band with a vision, and with its 19th century aesthetic, manages to be different and identifiable in its own right. Unfortunately, any toughness is undermined by a paper-thin production and while the tone lends itself to the style, the result sounds cheap, and dry, vanishing guitars and cardboard drums (indeed, the below-par drumming in general) seriously hamstring the album.
At its best Immoral Compass has, like Cut-my-own-throat Dibbler, wares to offer. The title track, and standout song on the album, showcases everything good about Eibon, sounding like 00’s Cradle Of Filth running headfirst into Sigh’s Gallows Gallery; ‘Imperial Jackals Head’ mixes Lemuria… era Bal-Sagoth with Sabbat; ‘Conjure Me’ is catchy with a solid if unspectacular Mercyful Fate backdrop; ‘Flames 1918’ is a surprisingly delicate and well-written ballad that wouldn’t be out of place on a Fields Of The Nephilim album and ‘The End of Everything’ is doomy, sprawling darkness.
However, there are several flaws and ‘An Enigma of Space and Time’ serves as a microcosm of the album, showcasing Eibon’s inherent inadequacies. Throwing the kitchen sink at a 5 minute track on a journey through Arcturus (minus the genius), Damnation-era Cradle, a splash of prog seguing clumsily into a dreadful, wooden PAK-PAK blastbeat section, before closing in a swathe of stock Gothic BM, ultimately, like the album, it shows a band whose ideas overstretch their ability to execute them.
Eibon la Furies have a valid, identifiable sound and aesthetic, and could well have a great album in them. This isn’t it though.
6/10
Steve Tovey