Slegest was the vision of guitarist Ese when he left Vried in 2010 and in essence is taking more traditional heavy metal and marinating it in black metal for a while, keeping it dirty and dark. Knowing that, the slow to mid paced almost doom riff of ‘Ho Som Hauster Aleine’ is not such a shock. Low and dirty, a sound emphasised by the snarled, gargled black metal vocals. It’s a cool riff, though perhaps an odd choice for an opener as it’s not a throat grabber immediately though it grows nicely with repeated listens. Second song ‘Rooted In Knowledge’ is much more so however, some excellent lead guitar work, as you would expect from Ese, weaving that hook about the grim riff and keeping it balanced on the edge between NWOBHM and doom with an air of very early, slow Venom in that big dirty bass sound muddying things up nicely.
There is a ghost of Sabbath resting eerily on this album too: A classic approach to the big, heavy riffs that come on like someone trying to reign in a couple of heavy Shire horses intent on ploughing forward. Ese makes a lot of room for the bass, too, which is great to hear. The relentless pounding steps of it on ‘I Slike Stunder’ keep that song’s engine turning perfectly. On the other hand the slightly faster ‘Logna Sin Fiende’ with another excellent riff with the best hook so far reminds me how close some black metal bands are to classic heavy metal anyway: Immortal in particular wouldn’t be ashamed of this riff and it’s kind of a less epic, less bombastic, more introverted and sombre cousin to the I and Demonaz albums. ‘The Path Of No Return’ keeps this groove and ploughs even deeper; tolling bell like guitar notes hang on the edges of the dark riff and the instrumental bridge will bring a swell of pride to any fan of classic metal. Bitter, beautiful and superbly composed.
It’s often the less obvious touches that bring out the real song-writing talent here, that make you realise how good Slegest are. The often quiet touches of the guitar around the fat noisy riff on ‘Faceless Queen’ and ‘Dirt Life Death’ work like engraving on perfectly shaped silver and catch your ear and pull you in. I ended up quite mesmerised by this guitar sound and the very individual songs here. Whilst this isn’t just the sound of Immortal or Bathory, it works in similar ways, just standing much closer to metal’s roots. Ese wanted to splice classic heavy metal to black metal and if you listen to the hugely emotional guitar work on things like the closing ‘Past Burden Strength’ I absolutely defy you to say the man hasn’t realised his vision. That song just blazes black fire as it drives past and gouges deep scars in you as it does.
Dark and snarling sometimes, deeply emotional others, if ever there was an album that speaks louder through the music than the words, Loyndom is it. Black metal for the Grand Magus crowd, traditional metal for Bathory fans and I will probably never get the riff from ‘Past Burden Strength’ out of my skull.
Unassuming and evocative musicianship, fine songwriting. Spot on.
(8.5/10 Gizmo)
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