It looks like the nails I hammered into the coffin of this Finnish band’s first and supposedly only full length were premature as the duo of V-Khaoz and Werwolf of Vargrav and Satanic Warmaster respectively, to name just one notable band the duo reside in, have disinterred the band to release a surprise but very welcomed second album. Like the debut the sophomore is saturated in 90s obsidian iciness, a grim exploration through eight songs of kvlt, cvlt, necro, nekro, or whatever you care to call it, black metal that fans of the old style sound will wholly appreciate.
‘Wolves Of The Wintermoon’ kicks things off and immediately you are plunged into a frostbitten sphere, the biting caustic vocals link superbly with the stripped back guitar work and production values to produce an album with piercing and unrelenting embitterment. With the sound having that rawness old school black metal requires it gives this album a nightmarish aura, the rancidity of the vocals marrying with the outright ugliness of the riffing as ‘Ancient Enemy Of Life’ shows so well. Stripping back the sound also provides the album with a glacial atmosphere, as a corrosive barbarity threads through it like contagion that makes you shiver.
I’ll admit that many of the songs have a similarity with little variation, which is a good thing in my book as it allows you to immerse yourself within songs like ‘Twilight Woods’ and ‘Damnation Nocturne’ where the hideous aura is captured via its unremitting throat scraping vocals or the savaging blackness that permeates the release. Short and filled with rancour is ‘Glacier’, a track as unrepentant and unforgiving as it is violent and consuming where the virtual punk filled riff style gives it a pugnacious pungency I like about black metal of this type.
Raw and steeped in rancid ferocity is ‘Deep In The Ice-Cold Mountains’, as one of the highlights on the album it grasps you by the throat, throttling the life from you with an asphyxiating choking ethos and links superbly with ‘Eternal Winter, Eternal War’. The isolated guitar piece that opens it is like the opening of an abyssal chasm that you are about to plummet through, as its rawness conjures up images of very early Burzum, especially with the light keyboard that manifests very subtly in the mix and actually reminded me of a UK act called Enferum, if you’ve ever heard them. Also that manifest primitive aura is similar to the likes of very early Ancient, think ‘Trolltaar’ etc and of course Darkthrone due to the iciness that pervades as the album closes with ‘The Dark Storm of Death’ and allows half blasted speed to come to front for some controlled pandemonium as the opening short vocal screech blends with the songs intrinsic malignancy. I cannot overstate just how utterly toxic and poisonous the vocals are on this album, they just seem to infect you, polluting your very essence as the incessant speed shows no hints of easing up through its four minutes and even if it does drop out periodically you feel subjected to an absolute mauling that concludes this surprise second album from Grieve and one that fans of any of the acts I’ve named should check out.
(8.5/10 Martin Harris)
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