"Sargeist. Black metal probably cannot be any blacker than this. This is so extremley evil, that it scared me at first. I felt all the horrifying and hellish qualities of this album come out of the speakers and tear my heart out. It is almost too black metal for me, and I'm a guy who truly enjoys countless satanic black metal bands/albums. Anyway, "Panzergod" is a highlight on this album and is evil sounding enough to make almost anyone s**t their pants - black metal should have that quality. This is stuff that will haunt you forever. This stuff makes Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir look and sound like Michael Bolton. If you are religous, weak, or an average Headbanger's Ball viewer this is not for you!"
Cold. Grim. Evil.
Malice6 | Ohio, USA | 08/20/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Though some may consider the term "black metal" to be a bit overpopularized, it still holds meaning to a few individuals who appreciate what it truly means. And this, my friends, is black metal. You can feel the hate right through the speakers. The intro track, which are usually throwaway instrumentals, actually scared me a little when I put it in my car cd player the first evening, and that's coming from someone who has listened to countless "evil" albums. Thats when I knew I had a winner. Black metal should have that edge of fear, blasphemy, and anger. Too often anymore, albums are run through soundboard after soundboard, churning out polished "symphonic" material. While I can appreciate the correspondingly better sound, I still like to know that a band somewhere is putting out an album like "Satanic Black Devotion." This music flows through the roots of "black metal", and though many other more accessible bands have grown from the genre, music like this is the purest form of the beast."
Wow...
Cory G. | Vic, Australia | 02/26/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"...When I read that someone had said that it was the best BM they'd heard since Sons of Northern Darkness I thought they were exaggerating. Now it's really hard for me to say this since I'm a huge Immortal fan... But this album surpasses anything they have ever done. In fact this could quite possibly be the best black metal album I have ever heard in my entire life... Never have I heard any music of any genre that has been so evil and cold, yet highly memorable.
I can't complain about anything... The production is perfect, raw but thick and clear. The drums are in time (oh god how some bands irritate me with terrible drummers) and the songs were actually written. I could slap on any old black metal cd and write an album of equal length and quality in 3 or 4 hours.. That irritates me more than bad drummers. But Satanic Black Devotions is expertly written, the songs are structured well and the riffs are hauntingly melodic, you can tell ALOT of time was spent writing the album, which I appreciate very much.
The vocals are pure emotion... By emotion I mean anger, pain, HATRED. Now if I haven't lumped enough praise on this band/album, I enjoyed every single song, this is well worth the purchase and I recommend all black metal fans to get hold of this excellent cd."
Church burners paradise
Victoria | Eugene, Oregon, Usa | 08/20/2003
(4 out of 5 stars)
"personally found this cd to be an amazing accomplishment in the black metal community... great bm vocals"
Satanic Black Devotion
Amy | outer space | 05/21/2008
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Sargeist is sort of another Black Metal supergroup with members of Behexen and Horna, and started out as a side project of Shatraug's (who played everything on the Tyranny Returns release). Hoath Torog from Behexen does the vocals on this and it took some getting used to for me, but grew on me a lot with repeated listenings. "Preludium" is an intro track that opens the album well, then it moves on to some very listenable, atmospheric and gloomy songs. There have been comparisons with Darkthrone, and it's true in the sense that they have the same sort of atmosphere as early Darkthrone albums, not that they blatantly rip them off or anything, but rather, they have some nice guitar melodies going on along with a great atmosphere.
However, "Frowning, Existing" has exactly the sort of of vocals that make me initially want to remove the CD from the player and throw it in the trash, but I guess it's supposed to sound mournful and agonized. I can see how people could appreciate the vocals here, but I can take so much agony and wailing and I felt too much like I was suffering just from listening, despite the fact that I liked the music. Maybe that makes it effective. I'm not sure.
"Panzergod" begins fast and energetically, which breaks up the slower pace of some of the songs at the beginning of the album and keeps it from sounding too similar to the other tracks. For me it stands out as one of the better songs, along with "Black F***ing Murder," which was the first Sargeist song I ever heard, before I even picked up the album. It was catchy and interesting enough to make me want to hear more Sargeist. There are sections of very nice, melodic guitars and memorable chorus that makes you almost want to sing along, and enough tempo changs to keep things from sounding monotonous.
Also, it's one of my peeves when bands name a song after the band name or the band name after a song (though several of my favorite bands have done so), but "Sargeist" is a decent song, so I forgive them.
It's all quite minimalistic sounding, and the drums are a lot more audible than they were on the later Disciple of the Heinous Path. The guitars sound very good as always and the songs have great emotion and atmosphere. I'm not overly fond of the vocals but they fit the music well enough and as a whole, this is a quality album."