A great atmospheric black metal album

Written by Bart Verkeyn on mariosmetalmania.com  July 2006

“Bishop of Hexen” was formed in late 1994 early 1995, in Ramat-Hasharon, Israel and consists of Seelenfolter (bass) , Van Helsing (drums) , Dimrost (keyboards) , Lord Koder (vocals) , Ariel E (guitars). Nine years after their first album ‘Archives Of An Enchanted Philosophy’ was released Bishop of Hexen is back with their second release ‘The Nightmarish Compositions’.

The album is a great atmospheric black metal album and I wouldn’t be surprised if a song of this album would serve as a soundtrack for some new horror movie. The albums starts of with a creepy intro and then blasts into Dimmu borgir mode. Although still heavily trusting on the keyboard for the melody and structures they have really improved since their previous album. The vocals range from growling to screeching and sometimes to clean theatrical singing. This band has improved a lot since their latest album and I think that we, for the symphonic black metal scene, can put them right up on the highest scaffold together with Dimmu Borgir. This is a great release and I hope that their third album won’t take that long to make as this album because i hope to hear from them soon.