Essentially the flagship band of Earl Root's Root-O-Evil burgeoning record label, Lorde of all Desires play black metal of a distinctly european flavour, yet reside in, of all places, Eden Prarie Minneapolis. The cool thing though is that while the music has the cold yet appealing ambience of those frosty BM bands, Lorde didn't choose to just join a particular movement. Instead, LoaD throw in elements that differentiate them (for me) from many other apers. Production seems to be a key factor in a lot of these recordings, with feelings that anything overproduced goes against the black code of honor, a limiting development which hampers some otherwise good discs for me. Well, this isn't done with mirrors, nor is it recorded in a cave, Malevolence having a really bleak feel, yet everything is discernible, much to my liking. I'm still a layman in matters such as these, but I'd guess that lots of compression and reverb were the helping hands here. A testament against those that sais that the states could never produce a killer black metal band, Lorde of all Desires pay a lot of attention to song structure, building some masterful tunes which run longer than the average 3 minute mark, allowing songs to grow and the listener to become accustomed to each track (essential in more atmospheric black metal) without boredom setting in. I hear a couple of different vocal styles here, with a faint nod towards Cradle in areas (but not too blatant), but overall, I think that LoaD have managed to create an album which stays true to the form, yet builds on the foundation that they were given. There are either a couple problems in the mix or the mastering, where a couple of the instrumental tracks are louder than the rest of the disc, but when considering that this was released through a true undergroung label, I feel bad about making comments like that. Always a big hit at the American festivals, I can see Lorde of all Desires rapidly becoming a hot commodity in the black metal circuit. Closes with an eight minute acoustical guitar piece, now that's something I haven't heard in a while!