“Countess… Never heard of that band before. Must be a new band.“ was what I thought when I had Holocaust Of The God Believers in my hands. Then I checked the website, and I felt a little ashamed. New? No way, this band already released 16 demo’s, albums, EP’s etcetera before this one. And it is a Dutch band as well. Oops!

 

Actually Countess isn't a complete band, it is a one man project by the man named Orlok. Well let me tell you about this album. As you might have thought after reading the title, Countess is not a big fan of Christianity, so when you guessed Countess plays black metal, you are right.

The first song ‘My Sword Never Sleeps’ really reminds me of Nattefrost. Very simple catchy riffs, simple drumming and distorted screams. Actually a very nice song, but the melodic licks sometimes were not chosen well for some parts. The same could be said about the next song, great riffs, but the opening solo doesn’t fit at all in my opinion. This song is faster and more aggressive, very nice, but again those licks. Perhaps if the volume of the licks would be a little lower it would sound better, now they are too much in the front.

Then it’s time for a melodic song. A song again with a lot of licks, but this time they fit really well, and Orlok managed to write a nice mid tempo epic. The rest of the songs all have the same recipe, simple but catchy riffs, melodic licks, vocals that sound nice but with very little variation and simple drumming.

The production could have been better. The sound of the drums and the rhythm guitar is very nice with its nice raw sound, but the lead guitars are mixed too loud in my opinion. A nice plus is the total playing time of 1 hour and almost 13 minutes. Holocaust Of The God Believers surely isn’t a bad album, but I have heard way better releases in this genre.