METAL HEART (GER) # 02/2002

All albums of Ancient Ceremony have been absolute masterppieces by now. "THE THIRD TESTAMENT" with its individual ideas and mighty hymns is another example for this. Their bombastic Black Metal is mixed again with Goth and Death Metal influences and can reach even the class of Dimmu Borgir. The vocals are evil and evocative while diabolical keyboards and occult interludes even widen their huge spectre. The female vocals are over the top. OK, all these ingredients have been used by other bands already but this is here not important at all as Ancient Ceremony again do such a fuckin' good and convincing job. What really counts is the result - which kicks ass!
"THE THIRD TESTAMENT" is truely a masterpiece of melodic Black Metal! The band simply has a feeling for effective "straight to the ear" songs that don't lack anything. Bombast, rough power, melody and mysticism unite perfectly and this album is highly recommended to the fans. Buy or die!

9/10 points Markus Wosgien

SONIC SEDUCER # 02/2002

Ancient Ceremony cultivated their unique style up to elitistic grades. This merciless orchestra of death offers a notable artistic development which found ist highlight in the previous album "Synagoga Diabolica" where these German creatures of the night around bandleader Chris Anderle produced a migthy manifest of diabolical passions and turned more towards the realms of Death Metal. With "THE THIRD TESTAMENT" - their best work so far - they now show that their strengths cooperate better than ever before. Anderle and his companions reached on this top album what most bands are aiming for in vain: A closed, musically creative union with strong atmosphere. The aggressive roughness of Metal dances hand in hand with hymnic, orchestral bombast through the 11 songs until everything culminates in impressive explosions. The variety of different soundscapes is gigantic! During the dark horror-parts a voluptuous Satanic bride is also not missing; she evokes trance with her loevly devotional soprano, praises the horned master and offers herself for the ritual to come. All this gets crowned with fantastic keyboard creations which with grace do seduce you to Evil!

Markus Eck

After the back to basics approach of 2000's 'Synagoga diabolica', 'The third Testament' finds Germany's Ancient Ceremony on a new label and heading back into the sort of territory that they know best. Evoking the sort of characteristics of horror-film atmosphere translated into a metallic format, Ancient Ceremony take a background of keyboards ( that fortuantely do not swap everything in sight ) and sound track flavours, tailoring it into a result that manages to capture a sense of melodic catchyness and jutaposes that with a sharp-edged black/death metal fusion.
'Litanies Of ( sic) Blood' leans towards the latter trait with the focus centred on Chris Anderle's gruff vocals and Patrick Meyer's cutting guitar work while 'A Black Requiem' and 'Seed Of Evil' follow a distinctly more melodic path. 'Salute O satana' comes over as a ' Carmina Burana' / 'omen' mix.
Ancient Ceremony may just become the metal version of Goblin sooner rather than later.

7.5 out of 10 Guy Strachan (best Death/Black album of the month!)

WALLS OF FIRE (GER) # 01/2002

To describe this album with one word: Fantastic! It's definitely their best release - a masterpiece of the so called "New Wave" Black Metal. The production (a result of the cooperation with Markus Stock at Studio "Klangschmiede E") is overwhelming. The music itself is very variable: Fast, extreme - and wonderful!The guitar work often reminds me to Slayer, the mighty keyborads to Cradle of Filth and the compositions move all the time between symphonic passages and wild crescendos. Whispers and female chants add even more to the picture Ancient Ceremony are drawing here. The vocals of mastermind Chris Anderle consist of sheer agression and hysterical screams.
"THE THIRD TESTAMENT" is "true" indeed for it deals with the Satanic concept of Black Metal all the time: Qoutations from the "Satanic Bible", passages from the "Revelation" or Goethe's "Faust" surround this work with a mystic charm which makes the album without any doubt a fascinating piece of music.

9/10 points Deni Petrunova