This Swedish one man black metal band, delivers raw black metal, mixed up with epic-laden atmospheres and eeriness.

The guitar sound is raw and ugly as the main riffs. There is always a melodic lead going through the tracks as a guiding light. The melodies are one of the things that make it shiver down ones back. Together with the grim vocal, which can be understood after a couple of listens.

Composition wise is the album very well crafted. Simple song structures, powerful riffs and melodies and some weird leads. Together with the pounding computer drums, which doesn’t sound as bad as they could have. The bass is rumbling beneath the guitars, always making noise. Though it is about the guitars and Thomas Nyholm does show some great and inside the black metal style, some very unorthodox playing.

The sound on the album is not top notch at all. When the music is thundering and all instruments are making noise, is it okay, noisy and suiting. But when a single instrument is going to show off, a terrible hum appears in one of the channels, and kinda ruins the playing and overall atmosphere as Damnation Army has build up.

Overall is the album pretty good and shows some unorthodox but still suiting guitar play. This could be a way of renewing a bit stale black metal scene, without compromising with the ethics of black metal. Great atmospheric and epic laden black metal from Sweden is what you get from “The Art Of The Occult”.

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