Review by Daniel for Order of Ennead - An Examination of Being (2010)

This album starts out fairly promisingly but I soon found myself becoming distracted. I think a lot of this is due to the fact that I struggle with the authenticity of their black metal sound. This was a problem that I had with a lot of the US black metal bands back in the 1990s but many seem to have overcome this now. Order Of Ennead just don't seem to create much of a dark atmosphere. One of the reasons for this would be John Li's guitar solos. John is a very good lead guitarist  but I don't think his Yngwie Malmsteen-meets-Eric Johnson style guitar solos really do the atmosphere much good. They are just too melodic & are not aggressive enough. Steve Asheim sounds like he is trying to break the world record for the clickiest kick drums too. This is not a bad record by any stretch but I don't find much here that is likely to draw me back in for repeat listens.