Babylon Mystery Orchestra - Divine rights Of Kings
Self-financed

Ferdi: There are already a handful of ‘orchestra’s’ known to rock ‘n’ roll. I trust it that everybody knows Electric Light Orchestra, the symphonic pop/rock project of Jeff Lynne, that was headlining sold out arena’s at the peak of it’s career in the seventies. Almost as well-known is of course Trans-Siberian Orchestra, the name under which Savatage tries to fulfil it’s commercial ambitions. We can now add a third orchestra to these two: the Babylon Mystery Orchestra. An unusual name, for a quite an unusual band.

Because this one-person orchestra doesn’t sing about traditional metal-topics like worshipping satan or sacrificing you neighbour’s dog. No sir: Babylon Mystery Orchestra’s lyrics deals with Byblical themes mostly. Though not in the way most white-metalbands do it, according to BMO’s bio: "Don't categorize this with other bands in Christian Metal. There is no salvation, no redemption and no forgiveness in this music. This is fire and brimstone; hell and damnation music". A fresh, new lyrical approach, right?

Just as fresh as the musical approach, which –quite surprisingly- has little or nothing to do with metal; but can also hardly be labelled as pop or corporate rock. The music, often based on just a handful of chords, repeated throughout the whole song. These slow, repetitive foundation give a hypnotising quality to the music, one which forces the listener to really pay attention to the lyrics. This approach is highly reminiscent of some of the slower material of Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds, with a bit of the dark Pink Floyd thrown in too. It’s a strange combination, altogether. Strange, because the band is labelled as metal, but in fact has little to do with the style. I gather that BMO has its roots in Dio and Blue Oyster Cult, but frankly I‘ll be damned if I can hear the resemblance.

That doesn’t mean that this is a bad cd per se, of course. Most lyrics are quite meaningful, not up to a point where you’ll agree with all of them, but they’ll certainly make you think for a while. So for the lyrical content this is a good cd, but not someone you’d want to play at a party where people need some hard hitting metal to bang their heads to. Don’t try to see BMO’s cd as a bona fide music-record, try to see it as a mildly interesting spoken-word cd with some free backgroundmusic.

Rating 65/100

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