For obvious reasons there’s something about winter that makes me lean towards the more furious and frosty spectrum of my black metal listening habits. And this winter, Marduk, Taake, Thromesis, Inferion, Dodsverk and this, the fifth album from The Netherlands’ Sammath have all satiated my need for a more primal and  classic take on the style.

However, it’s times like these that I wish that ol’ father time himself,  Grimulfr was still writing for the site as he is much more versed and suited for these types of reviews, even having reviewed the bands third album, Dodengang a few years ago, and I’m really no expert on this style, it being the lesser on my preferred styles of black metal.

However, Sammath certainly fit the season and the bill when required with raw, tremolo picked riffs and (very) high register shrieks/croaks, benefiting the polar vortex and drenched with typically blackened, war mongering hatred of all things.  With titles like “Shot in Mass”, “This World Must Burn (Hammer of Supremacy)”, “Death (Hunt them Down)” and “Nineteen Corpses Hanging in the Mist”, you know there’s no pixies and unicorns involved and the music is as hateful as the song titles.

The guitar tone is brittle and shrill but effectively scathing and treads the fine line between old school and new school tone, but the actual riffs themselves are well done with feral bite and seething melody as well as the odd reliable militant march here and there. There is nothing game changing here, but I have to admit the mid album salvo of “Thrive in Arrogance” and “This World Must Burn (Hammer of Supremacy)” did grab my attention and make Sammath a band in the style I might have to investigate further.

[Visit the band's website]

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