This album intrigued me on a number of levels. It’s epic black metal through “that dark forest of our minds”. Conceived during a blizzard in the band’s native Finland, the band’s line-up has links with Insomnium, Omnium Gatherum, Paradise Lost and Bodom after Midnight.

The beginning has a distinct feel of a slow, flesh-rotting corpse. The funereal tone is akin to Mayhem. There is a symphonic choral sound, breaking out into old-fashioned 90s style nastiness. “Hear Me O’Unmaker” is a world of war and blizzards. It is ablaze with fire. A synthesised sound reminiscent of Dimmu Borgir’s early album “For All Tid” It creates the unholy feel of evil in the air but this is rampant, dirty old black metal with oodles of atmosphere and of course unrelenting darkness. “Hear Me O’Unmaker” is equally epic. The drums hammer thunderously to introduce us to the fire and brimstone of “Dawnbearer”. Thrashing black violence descends into a fear-imposing spoken passage. Creepy things fly in the air. “Ode to the Nightsky” is not dissimilar to Emperor’s “In the Nightside Eclipse”. I Am The Night, indeed, which happens to be the title of the next grainy, grisly piece. Hypnotic, old school black metal persistence prevails. A ghoulish air rides above the angry and intense instrumental work and rasping vocals of “The Owl”. After moments of melancholy, a choir strikes up amid fury and turbulence. The choir and narrator return for the imperious and driving slab that is “Among the Unseen Ones” before the leaden tones of “Holocaust of the Angels” bring down the curtains amid gloom and mist.

“While The Gods Are Sleeping” is like being cast back in time and taken on a 1990s black metal tour. The journey is one of furious energy and epic atmospheres.

(8/10 Andrew Doherty)

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https://iamthenight.bandcamp.com/album/while-the-gods-are-sleeping