Band:	Beatrik
Album:	Requiem Of December
Style:	Black metal, Doom metal
Release date:	2005

01. My Funeral To Come
02. Requiem Of December
03. Eternal Rest
04. The Last Wandering
05. Apollonia's December, 7th 1647
06. Returning After A Death

Beatrik after their debut album "Journey through the End of Life" returned during 2005 with their second attempt, "Requiem of December", and all I can say is that for one more time they released a really wonderful and depressive album.

Doom/black metal is what Beatrik play and they do it in the most appropriate way offering six compositions that breathe death, sorrow and desperation in the heavy air. What someone may notice are the Deinonychus references, a bit on the music (guitar sound/riffing etc) and especially on the vocal factor with the tormented screams. Frozen Glare Smara's vocals bring forth memories of Marco Kehren for sure at times, but they never reach Kehren's extremely heart-rending screams. This doesn't mean he's not a good vocalist, on the contrary, he's a wonderful interpreter and makes the already lachrymose atmosphere way more intense and soul-crushing!

The Deinonychus references, as I said above, are obvious, yet this doesn't mean that Beatrik is a copy band. To avoid misunderstandings, Beatrik as a band have their influences as every band does and they harmonize them with their own aesthetic, atmosphere and ideas so as to offer their own music to the doom/black metal audience. The guitar riffing is well executed and it has a mourning sound, whether it is more mid-tempo, having that dirge-like feeling, or more up-tempo and black metal-oriented, having that razorblade sound that leaves wounds behind. The guitar chords lend a more fragile feeling to Beatrik's music and they pace with the compositions whenever they enter. The rhythm section plays its role quite well, being more accompanying or more intense and powerful, lending groove to the compositions. What is really important is the fact that Beatrik don't use lead keyboard melodies, just very slight additions, to make their sound more affected and depressive, in fact they don't need the keyboard melodies since the guitars play the atmosphere-evoking role in the most appropriate way and along with the vivid vocals they imprison the listener in a funeral world.

The cover of the album is funereal and really beautiful, pacing with the melodies of the band and the lyrics as well that move in poetic mourning/desperate/farewell/death pathways, adorning the essence of Beatrik even more.

Beatrik's "Requiem Of December" is a wonderful album, a release every doom metal fan should check for it is filled with intense emotions and inspiration, showing that the band has really a lot to offer to the audience of mourning tunes.

"This Requiem of December is the deepest and grey
Mourning and melancholia attend me in this Requiem?"