Bane
The Acausal Fire

November 2012
Released: 2012, Abyss Records
Rating: 3.5/5
Reviewer: Metal-Rules.com UK Team

This is the second album from Serbian black metal trio Bane – or Ban3 as they are sometimes referred to, and it has been almost three years in the making. Their debut, ‘Chaos, Darkness and Emptiness’, came out in early 2010 which characterizing the band’s somewhat stop-start career to date. With a brief career, which now may be at a premature end as founder/frontman Panić has now emigrated to Canada.



Both lyrically and musically, the album follows the same nihilistic route as its predecessor, and once again draws heavy influences from the Nordic and Scandinavian exponents of DM, however, with a few notable exceptions they do not do much to progress beyond the obvious roots of their own sound (for which the inclusion of the Dissection cover as a needless bonus track is a more than obvious reference point).



The songs are well-written and in the case of the likes of ‘As Chaos Rises’ and ‘Light The Black Flame’, which dominate the middle section of the opus, very well so – and very well performed with the right balances of light and shade, blastbeat and subliminal symphonics, and their use of twin guitar harmonies is very effective, with Panić’s vocals by turns as evil and as ethereal as they need to be, all enhanced by an efficient if somewhat workmanlike production.



If this album is indeed the end of the road for Bane/Ban3, it would indeed be a pity, as it displays a lot of potential for a new rising force in the blackened death metal sphere: if it is their legacy to be remembered by this farewell, then it is a fitting one…



Review by Mark Ashby