What a weird footnote in the history of European black metal this is. Released in 1997 on Nuclear Blast, Symphonia is the one and only album from De Infernali, the "dark ambient" side project from Jon N�dtveidt from legendary Swedish death/black metallers Dissection (assisted here by Damien Midvinter who handles the bulk of the programming). Only it's not something that I would describe as dark ambient, but rather sounds like a very odd sort of Satanic, vehemently anti-Christian techno / electronica that resides in the shadow of 90's black metal as far as it's attitude is concerned. There are some very atmospheric moments on the album where N�dtveidt crosses over into Elend-like territory, but more often this finds itself wired to a pounding, total 90's style techno assault. Needless to say, any hardcore Dissection fan that picked this up probably ran shrieking for the hills by the time they hit track number two on Symphonia De Infernali. That's not to say that this isn't worth checking out though, especially if you are fascinated by the detours into electronic music undertaken by so many black metallers. In fact, as far as "techno" albums go, this one is pretty wild/weird, and most certainly very fucking evil.

At first, N�dtveidt goes for a kind of grim, funereal neo-classical sound on opener "Into The Labyrinths Of Desolation", layering dark repeated piano and slowly whooshing electronic fx over the sounds of woodwinds and string sections, evoking the Luciferian orchestrations of the aforementioned Elend. But once that's over and N�dtveidt kicks in to "Ave Satan", well, then it's glow-stick time, baby. Primitive pounding techno beats create a throbbing pulse beneath N�dtveidt's heavily distorted demonic vocals, trebly blackened guitar shredding, and clanking orchestral synth hits, reminding me of a crazed mash up between Thrill Kill Kult and looped blackened guitar solos. Another similar sort of pounding techno attack rears it's head on "Atomic Age", but then we get more cosmic ambience and malevolent symphonic strings on the very Tangerine Dream-like "Orcus Cursus".

And then you get the satanic techno hit "Sign Of The Dark", which could have been a major dancefloor single in the 90s if anyone actually gave a shit about this kind of stuff. The opening intro of stirring strings and snare rushes leads into the pulsating techno pop, and suddenly we're hearing death metal legend Dan Swano (Edge Of Sanity/Pan.Thy.Monium/Karaboudjan) delivering his deep, gothic croon over the synthetic throb. Yeah, when you hear this track, it's easy to see how black metellars would have been blowing steam out of their eye sockets when hearing this back in 1997.

The final portion of Symphonia is a mix of experimental electronics and neo-classical sounds. The three-part instrumental "Revival / Paroxysmal Winds / Forever Gone" begins with more of that gothic ambience that runs throughout the album, massed strings, chimes and a doleful piano melody woven into an apocalyptic incantation and explosive sound fx, followed by short Satanic spoken word/classical soundtrack exercise "Liberation", and ending with the weird industrial/computer noise piece "X".

Now reissued on the Polish label Metal Mind, this new edition of Symphonia comes in a garish digipack with liner notes and a lyric booklet, limited to 2,000 hand-numbered copies.