THE WING & THE BURDEN

The Wing & the Burden is the debut full-length studio album by Dutch black metal act Ordo Draconis. The album was released in June 2001 by Skaldic Art Productions.

The music on the album is a kind of experimental symphonic black metal. A band like Dimmu Borgir comes to mind several times through the album's playing time but as mentioned Ordo Draconis experiment a bit more. The music is epic, keyboard/ synth heavy and greatly influenced by classical music. The musicianship is good and especially the keyboard player stands out as really skilled. The sounds he choses are a bit too plastique to my ears but fans of the style probably won't be disappointed. The raspy vocals on the other hand become annoying already shortly into the first song. They are processed in a really weird fashion which makes them sound powerless and without punch. Kind of like if my out of breath grandma tried to sing in black metal style.

The production is not very powerful. It lacks punch and it's like there's something wrong with the volumes in the mix. The keyboard sometimes seems disjointed from the rest of the instruments in the soundscape. It's not a disaster and I'm able to enjoy the album without focusing too much on the sound quality but it's not something that's a plus in my book.

The Wing & the Burden is a decent debut album by Ordo Draconis and if you are a sucker for the symphonic keyboard driven black metal style, maybe this is an album that will please you. I've heard much better but still a 2.5 - 3 star rating is deserved.