This Norwegian band has never made my day. A copy of their debut full length “Nattferd” ended in my hands, sometime back in the days. Since then I’ve avoided the band’s music.

The band would like to be evil and to be a player in the black metal world. But the music lacks feeling and passion, 2 important things when we talk about black metal. Musically the band is pulling in the strings from the good old Norwegian scene, with a bit of modern elements added. Some of the compositions sounds influenced by rock ‘n’ roll, at times almost groovy. The band is playing a bit around with some twisted disharmonic guitar melodies, and that is working great in a track like ‘Heir Of Darkness’. Though it would not take much time to pick a bunch of bands, and in some cases, even tracks, and point them out as inspirational sources.

The album is recorded in The Abyss with Tommy Tägtgren. The sound is okay, without leaving a big impression. Often do the guitars sound more death metallish, than black metal. They create a big wall of guitars and noise, and it drowns the drums at times.

The vocal is very good, it is actually the best part of the entire album. The vocals are delivered by the new member Høst, who also roams in Taake.

The album is not recommendable, it is too boring and trivial, simply not good enough for a black metal album at this point. This is standard black metal delivered many times before, why pick up an album without ideas and killer songs. There are tons of great black metal bands and albums in the underground at the time being, use your money on them instead.

[This review was first published on the now defunct scandinavianmetal.info webzine]