This here seal of the devil is one of those albums that I enjoy because one track grips me in particular, and that is the utterly majestic opener “Born from the Abyss”. It is a velvety layer cake of misty chants and deep, warm synths that perfectly recalls the heyday of Scandinavian dark ambient, roughly fifteen years ago. Certainly not out of place on a label like Cyclic Law, that’s for sure. The rest of this album, the work of St. Petersburg resident Alina Antonova, is nothing to scoff at either, but it is definitely a mood piece, a nostalgic amalgam of ethereal, darkwave, ritual, and ambient influences that epitomises goth atmosphere to me personally. It’s a fairly consistent album, but the best is at the start. Still, Sigillum Diaboli will be required fare for some of you, a dark work somewhere between raison d’être, Coph Nia, Arcana, and more recently, Rose Croix. [...read more...]