ADULTERY is a five-piece black metal act hailing from the almighty Czech Republic, home to many a fine goregrind, death metal and black metal band. Age of Seven Towers is a four-song mini-CD precursor to the band's upcoming 17-song (!) full-length,Age of Winter Kings, which is due out in early 2003 on Avalanche Productions.

ADULTERY plays Medieval, folk-inspired black metal. The difference between these guys (and girl) and the myriad of other folk black metal bands is that ADULTERY--at least on this CD--appreciates the need for rawness in black metal. The sound on this CD is above-average, but still maintains a dirty feeling, accenting the aggressive, somewhat melancholy music within.

The line-up for ADULTERY consists of four men--Elrabor (guitars/vocals), Akharon (vocals), Marakhor (bass), Zheneras (drums)--and one woman, Maerin, who handles the clean female vocals. As you can see, the majority of the band share the vocal duties. Elrabor and Akharon perform the harsh black metal rasps and occasional clean singing while Maerin accompanies the male Viking singing perfectly, in a way I haven't heard before.

The music covers a wide range of tempos, from the accustom fast blasts to the mid- to fast-paced timing that dominates most of the three full-length tracks. "The Seventh Tower" is an instrumental that really shows off the band's folk roots, rife with catchy clean singing fit for swinging your ale mug to and laced with a festive sadness.

Though not putting forth anything particularly original, ADULTERY does a
fine job of propagating the tradition of fantastical,
folkloric black metal, joining the ranks of quality bands such as Poland's
SALTUS. In short, if  Age of Seven Towers is this good,
imagine what the impending album will be like!