Heading up this band is the extremely talented and creative Norgaath who has his black heart in various other bands and is accompanied on this release by Menthor (Enthroned) and also some guest vocal appearances by a couple of people I am unfamiliar with. This is a debut album for this project and sends the listener back 25 years to a time when black metal was lo-fi, with stripped back polar riffing, glacial vocals and the atmosphere of a wintry terror.

With five songs spanning 47 minutes you are in for a torturous experience as the album gets under way with “The Call Of Death’s Clarion” which has a suitable eerie intro section with dripping sounds and rumbling backdrop creating tension and drama. That drama is shattered as an ice blasted riff sends shards of obsidian ice into the listener. The approach of the song is truly a homage to how proper black metal was and for some should be played, with a despondent elegiac beat the track grimaces in pain ready for the shrill guitar riff that malevolently pours out of the speakers. It is clear that Norgaath likes his theatrics as the songs are tinged with effects creating a sonic landscape, as keyboards are also added to the mix to great effect.

Crashing into “In The Absence Of Light, Death Gazes” the assailing blast and piercing riff is similar to very early Dark Funeral, tuneful but starkly violent as Norgaath croaks the vocals like a ghoul. The tempo shifts on this album are exceptional timed to perfection and allow each song to advance into other avenues but still retaining that ethereal and virulent canopy as the track utilises a Dissection like melodic guitar hook, before dropping the pace into a miasmic chasm of bitterly slower riffing.

Any song called “In Solitude” is bound to be an exploratory journey of isolated desperation as the track begins with a sorrowful riff and slow drum beat. The track languishes in an ocean of solemnity, soulless destitution adhered to the bleak guitar riffing ready for the vocals to caw into life and sending the pace spiralling upwards, morphing the riff into a magnificent and colossal behemoth. All the songs on this are extremely different as the title track has wonderfully cold but melodic riff and steady pace as the track escalates in intensity towards a sonic blizzard, exuding an embittered ethos with phantom vocal manifestations. The dirging pace is doleful, teeming with sadness as the track listens like it was recorded in a very large stone hall, where the vocals hauntingly echo heartlessly throughout the track.

Closing this opus is “Withered”, a savage persistently vicious song that has similarities to Enslaved’s material on “Vikingligr Veldi” using a punishing speed and an unyielding callous assault. That speed is maintained at inhuman speeds before suddenly transforming with tangential dive in tempo to unfurl a barren riff and gentle melody. As the track progresses you are thrust into emotionless savagery, a primeval vitriol that continues to the end of the song and leaves you breathless and corrupted beyond recognition.

All those who crave the lo-fi black metal sound of yesteryear should buy this, it is creative, possesses boundless sonic vision and is utterly harrowing as it should be.

(9/10 Martin Harris)

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http://coldborn.bandcamp.com