Last year, I reviewed the fourth album, Emptiness Fills the Void, (Non Serviam Records) from this Swiss melodic black metal band, And was rather impressed with band’s tight, modern take on classic Scandinavian (Dissection, Naglfar, Catamenia, Dawn etc) melodic black metal from the 90s. So when I heard Non Serviam Records was reissuing the band’s 2013 second effort, Evocation of Light, I had to check it out.
Originally released on CD by Great Dane Records in 2013, this blue marble vinyl, gate fold, limited edition (200 copies) LP has sightly different artwork adds no additional music. And that’s fine, as the music itself is of high quality, and certainly I can see the band has a consistency in their chosen sound from this album to the most recent one ( I have yet to hear the album that came out in between, 2016s Singularity).
Blisteringly melodic, razor sharp, polished black metal (sans keyboards) is the order of the day for the 9 song , 40 minute run time, with maybe a subtle hint of 90s melodic death metal. It’s superbly produced (Swiss producer Vladimir Cochet of Mirrorthrone produced all 4 of the bands albums) and crystal clear in it delivery and influences, first wave or ‘kult’ black metal this is not.
Picking standouts is hard with so much consistency among the 9 tracks, but attention grabbing opener “Inner Flame” gets you hooked right away with an awesome, classic, 90s blast, leads and riffage, as does second track “Epitaph – An Evocation of Light”, with a nice early In Flames/ Dark Tranquillity little acoustic bridge (of which there are a couple scattered around the album) amid the scorching melodies. And the album closing duo of “Thoroughfares”, with its nice little mid song melo-death canter, and 7 minute “The Call” with its epic lead melody line is are sheer joys and letter perfect examples of the genre, given a shiny new gloss.
Other than the band’s current label wanting to get the bands early material under one roof, this probably is not a truly needed LP reissue fans were clamoring for, but certainly still a very good record, whatever format it is in. And I’m glad I checked it out, and it has driven me to seek out and complete my Stortregn CD collection.
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I gave this review a quick read through and listened to their newest album. Holy shit this band absolutely rips. I’m certainly glad I listened. Definitely check out Singularity if you haven’t yet. Great fucking album and definitely on par with the others.
on Oct 14th, 2019 at 07:00