Giving myself a break from Death Metal Month to check out the debut of this black metal band from Finland. They are more produced and polished than the black metal you typically think of coming from Finland. They attack with speedy violence, but it is not a wall of blast beats. In some ways, they remind me of Watain in this regard. There is an underlying thrash influence seething under the fire and shimmer. The vocals are in the kind of snarl you might expect from this sort of thing. They are capable of dealing out effects I've dynamics and slowing things to a more dynamic pace to contrast the more blasting sections The scowl of the vocals is also articulate enough to understand the lyrics. I think this is important because if you are spreading a message of darkness you try to get it across.
There is a balance of blasting and eerie darkness on 'Ethereal Constrictor' that allows the album to maintain its momentum without turning into sonic stagnation. Their drummer is awesome as they can do more than blasting and switch things up fill-wise. Some of the best double bass on this side of Hell Hammer. On "Ashes of Men" they pour more speed into the cauldron of their sound. In doing so they lose what previously set them apart from the pack as it descends into a hyper-gallop of fury. This carries over into "Unifacation", as the songwriting decays to indulge this rabid lashing out.
The formula begins to feel like it is firmly in their iron fist going into "Lunacy and Horror" which might build a bridge between the Venom era of black metal and the church-burning second wave. The vocals are layered in many places on this album, but that is the dominant style in this song. The songwriting does allow for more embellishments than how they attacked your ears in the two previous songs. "Under the Dead Sky" starts off as a blast fest that mellows into more effective and darker waters as the mood is built. However, just building back up into another blast fest seems counterproductive and the easy way out. The last song also is a bit of a blast fest, perhaps an even more furious one. I will give this album an 8, some moments lured me in though it tends to conform to the expectations of black metal, while still retaining a sense of identity, I guess in 2024 I want to hear a wider range of variations on this formula, with something new brought to the table. They are however more interested in songwriting than the bulk of their peers these days. It dropped on Season of Mist.
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