I’m not familiar with Germany’s Servant, having not heard the band’s prior two albums. Still, I’m always down for some ‘melodic-yet-furious black metal’ (per the promotional email). Especially as I dig a lot of the music that AOP Records puts out, especially the likes of Firtan, Waldgeflüster, Groza, Finsterforst, and Harakiri for the Sky. So I thought I’d check this out.

And to the surprise of no one, it was exactly as advertised;  ‘melodic-yet-furious black metal’, being spot on. Certainly, in line with the rest of the label’s varied roster, Servant is indeed atmospheric black metal, but they have a little more bite (and corpse paint) rather than some of the more purely atmospheric, ‘gaze-y’ or jangly black metal out there (i.e labelmates Ellende) and with little more traditional colder, black metal (Watain maybe?) as well, I man look at the album title. (And blistering tracks like”Devil” and the aptly named “Fury”).

But when they do deliver a ‘melodic yet furious’ moment, it’s pretty fucking good. For example, the main riff of “Temple” and the third track “Sin”, at the 3;15 mark, delivers simply a perfect black metal riff that really gave me goosebumps with its frosty melodicity. The penultimate track “Litany”, is the epitome of the melodic yet furious mantra, with some savagely melodic tremlo-picked blasting, especially the fucking furious last few moments.

They can also slow things down and get a little moody every so often as heard on the despondent instrumental “Hope” (certainly not a hopeful-sounding song at all), parts of “Death” and closer “Magick”, where they do get a little more gaze-y, with a piano and slower riffage to end an at time superb black metal album.

[Visit the band's website]

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