Review by Alex on January 23, 2020.

Fairly young band Diabology look to get their feet muddy with their debut full-length album, "Nobody Believes Me". A fusion of black/thrash/punk/groove/viking and a bit of traditional heavy metal is the formula the youngsters have chosen in mending the material together. Having the will to not repeat what other bands are doing (especially when labeled as a blackened thrash) is great by mixing the genres, but it's not done in the most concise way. While the songs themselves may be interesting the overall album seems like a compilation rather than a well woven adhesive set of attributes; not that the expectations were relatively high given the members are inexperienced, but the music needed some sense of cohesion. As far as playing, they make good of their instruments and one could only see better things to come from them with the progression of time. The punk influence could be heard in the vocals on almost all tracks but have a blackened tone as well, this along with the riffing and crusty production gives the music a rag-doll feeling which I think goes well with the various metal styles used.

Songs here are very owning of their identity; all the tunes sound different and have their individual moments intact despite the band being inexperienced. Following opener 'The Voices (Nobody Believes Me)' you'd have thought of Diabology as a punk metal act, but with each new entry the songs mutate into other forms of metal. You get 'Deicide' taking on a thrash/groove approach, then, out of nowhere, 'Defiling Innocents' goes full blown black heavy metal with tremolo riffing being at the forefront of the tunes backed by a very trad-metal guitar solo then it's back to thrash metal with a bit of hardcore influence on 'Ember to Ash'. This is the slight trouble of the music; it's enjoyable as singles but in-concise as a unit. Nevertheless, there are songs on here for you to enjoy headbanging to given the material is not stapled down to any one style in particular, it really caters to a large audience. I found the better songs were placed down the order with 'Seas of Eternity', 'Lost Viking', 'Lazarus Falling' and 'Silent' being the best (personally) on "Nobody Believes Me" for the fact the musicianship is much more convincing and a bit more coherent than those featured on the first half. 

The production on "Nobody Believes Me" helps out the music, it has a dirty and rugged texture that when applied to the punky black thrashing adds an organic flavor to an already down-to-earth recording. To sustain the lengthy run time this almost awkward sort of diversity comes as a sufficient tool, keeping the listener literally guessing which route the band will take next. The guitaring is good, and most songs in being so diverse from each other have credible riffs to support the styles. As mentioned before 'Lazarus Falling', 'Lost Viking' etc., are some of the highlights, credit of fairly good riffing; even on the slower songs such as 'Diabology', there's no denying the guitaring is solid, through breakdowns and all. In conclusion, overall the material has room for improvement but for what's offered appears to be sincere and telling of a band that could be more successful.

Rating: 7 out of 10