Dodsferd : " Wastes of Life"

They get things started off with a very twisted opener that has all the charm of depressive suicidal black metal, the kind of thing you might want to blare at some one you hate if you have them tied up in a dark room. The first real song is the twelve minute "Sterile Death, Without Mourning". The songs starts off with the kind of stellar guitar work that seldom graces black metal. When was the last time you thought about shredders in black metal. When the actual metal kicks in they don't jump to a blast beat and churn on something that has more of a old Shining feel...the Swedish band not the spastic band from Norway. Speaking of location, location , location this Greek band has not aspirations to be Rotting Christ. They drone on with this one milking the mood for every drop of it's dark blood.

They hold of on the blast beats , but still venting plenty of anger on "The Dead Have No Speech For" the Greek translation of that song title must make more sense. The vocals are the heaviest element to this song until the drums build up midway into it. These guys have unreal chops, so the fact they stick to a more sonic yet simplistic chord pattern for this song goes to show how they manage to put the songs first instead of making this a shred fest, though the solo does come and is more impressive than what you normally hear from a black metal band. It could be argued if they are in fact a black metal band since some of the more familiar trappings are sparse if they are there at all. But it's the grim mood that they milked earlier the romantic depression mixed with torment conveyed that really colors this a darker shade.

"To The Fall of Man" really fully makes the transition over into depressive suicidal black metal, even though clean guitar dominates the song. It is howled over in a very anguished tone that would bring a tear to the eye of Lifelover fans. The double bass remains constant under the haunting guitar as swathes of noise filled ambiance bookend this song. They close out the album with "Graves Of Your Creator" which is pretty impressive to really grasp the scope of what they do you need to give it a listen yourself, but it combines some really beautiful moments with majestic metal that isn't cheesy in the power metal sense, incorporating clean vocals with an honest clarity to them while coloring everything in broad strokes of atmosphere. This song does touch on some of the more conventional metal sounds and is the most accessible to a wider metal audience, think what Opeth used to be good at but darker. I'll round this one up to a 10 as I feel the need to move it over to my hard drive it captures some of the lower moments I have battled of late. Did not expect to be this impressed.