review by daniel

“Sacrilege of Fatal Arms” is basically a rearranged version of “Sacrilegium” with some 20 minutes of additional music. Both albums are great, but since you don’t need both of them this one is the obvious choice. It improves on “Eliogabalus” in every way; it has richer and more varied instrumentation (the sublime pipe organ is a welcome addition), more interesting compositions and better vocals. Mr. Doctor has split his schizoid narrator into even more persons. Angel, demon, child and madman struggle to take command over his voice and he even changes personality several times within the same sentence. As you might have guessed it takes a while to get used to but when/if you do, you will probably consider the vocals a vital part of Devil Doll’s sound.

I read somewhere that the lyrics are about a man lying in his grave looking back at his life. That may be true, but another theme is the manipulation and oppression of the masses, even using them as a powerful weapon. This theme is emphasized by the guest appearances by Goebbels, Lenin (?) and the pope. Anyhow, the lyrics work well with the music and the vocal delivery, even if you cannot follow Mr. Doctor everywhere.

A great piece of music and Devil Doll’s darkest and heaviest album. It is also their most twisted, mainly due to the “waltz-of-death” parts (think dance hall music for the undead) and the sampled snippets of the above mentioned “guests”.