Principles Of Chaos isn’t but the debut album by Greek outfit Shadowcraft, even though the band was formed eight years ago. Shadowcraft recorded two demos during the early years, and a promo in 2009, but this first full length shows the band in its most matured, professionalised expression.
Principles … opens with Aeons Passed On, an atmospheric and slightly ambient-symphonic intro with a dark, mysterious spirit. The second title, the first ‘real’ track, and the title track as well, brings the essence of this band: melodic, atmospheric and mesmerizing Black Metal with an important role for keyboards. It has something of Limbonic Art and Dimmu Borgir, earlier Darzamat, Lunar Aurora, Nocturnal Mortum, Summoning, Obsidian Gate, Nagelfar etc., but then again rather to be considered a symbiosis with a self-developed sound (despite not being original). It’s not quite Gothic, nor Pagan, but it holds the middle of these two fundamental additions to enrich the majestic sphere. Some parts go even further, leaving ‘traditional’ Black Metal in order to explore ‘dimensions beyond’. The first part of the Burning Sun diptych, for example, dwells in spheres of abyssal, post-necrotic Trance-Horror Ambient (oink?) and it does not surprise me for Shadowcraft hail from Greece, you see… Greece, not afraid to penetrate the cosmic elements of Obscurity with abyssal Black Magic, and this album is another proof that this country has more to offer than financial aberration. The same goes too for, for example, a track like The Chamber Of Eyes, which gets closer to Raison d’Être’s Requiem For Abandoned Souls than any predictable intro on an average would-be Cosmic Goth / Sympho Black record.
The totality can be considered some transcendental voyage through profound dimensions of the Eternal Dark and Utter Morbid Grimness. And it might sound somewhat artificial and finicking from time to time; this album certainly exhales an oppressive atmosphere of mystic and ritual grotesquery that cannot but please all adepts of catchy yet dark-magical Music.