Review by Jack on June 11, 2001.

Alas, all things in time must come to an end. When I first purchased this CD from Borknagar, I was horrified to find that firstly when putting it in the CD player, that the running time was a shade under thirty-eight minutes, not something you’d expect from Borknagar, when listening to "The Olden Domain" and their self-titled epic, both which run a shade under three-quarters of an hour.

Borknagar, with this album, have done away with Garm (Arcturus and Ulver), as their lead singer, and replaced him with ICS Vortex (who did some work with Arcturus). Vortex’s vocals whom many of you would be familiar with Dimmu Borgir are of a rather ‘different’ nature than the standard thoroughfare black metal nature. Lyrics are concerned with a more universal theme, than their last album, which was more dependent on nature. Lyric topics are similar, to Vintersorg’s latest effort, "Cosmic Genesis", and have strong universal and grandiose lineage. The music departs somewhat surprisingly from a black nature, to perhaps, (dare I say) progressive element surrounding parts of "The Archaic Course". The pace of this album is toned down, and a more gentle listen on the ears.

Oystein G. Brun brilliantly writes music for Borknagar, and is a real asset for the band, with such solid songs, it is really hard to see Borknagar going astray in the future. This CD is a wildcard in the band’s discography yet it does contain some extremely well played and composed songs. "Universal" and "Ad Noctum" are two of the band’s finest musical moments, the latter using a Hammond organ in the structure of the piece, and giving a decisively retro feel about it.

Bottom Line: If your willingly to depart from the traditional sounding black metal packs of musicians in the world, give this CD a spin, if not, steer well clear as this CD may well poison your mind. Vortex adds a new dimension, and Borknagar walks down a different path as a result. An interesting future ahead.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Review by Michael on December 22, 2020.

The Chilean Demoniac will release their now second album but I must say that I have not heard anything from them before. Also I must state that this is quite a flaw on my part, which is now fortunately fixed.

The cover shows a tarot card, on which the reaper can be seen in a swamp illuminated by the moon. A quite successful and also quite original artwork, I think. Musically Demoniac beats the inclined listener directly with a merciless pinch of old-school thrash in the style of old Merciless or Kreator around the ears. Pretty strong. However, in the course of the first track 'RSV - Fools Coincidence - Testigo' (but also in the other tracks of the CD) you will be quite surprised, because the band often switches from English to their native language Spanish, which sounds pretty cool. In addition, they incorporate passages in the middle of their songs that are already very reminiscent of classical compositions. Not bad, it doesn't always have to be in your face. The band uses not only the usual thrash metal instruments, but also piano or saxophone and what they really manage to do convincingly almost consistently is to mix aggressive parts with quieter, more classical interludes, so that it has become a very independent album. However, and this is my subjective opinion, at least the piece 'Extraviado' as well as the saxophone sounds in 'So it Goes', the 20-minute title track, which comes along compositionally very multifaceted, could have been saved by not using the sax. But this is probably due to my dislike for Lisa Simpson and the associated hatred of saxophones, in my eyes the worst instrument in the world.

The guys succeeded with So it Goes a pretty strong album that I will probably listen to more often, because it is much more varied than a lot of other thrash albums. If only there would not be the saxophone.....

Rating: 8.2 out of 10