There are some albums you dread getting to review because the previous album by the band was that rarity ‘a classic’, one just so good, so affecting, that after however many years it still gives you chills listening to it. Destroyer 666 ‘s ‘Defiance’ is one such album for me and Sargeist’s ‘Let The Devil In’ is another. And here I am with the follow-up to the latter in my lap. Except of course it isn’t a follow-up, it is an entity in its own right. It has its own list of demands. From the cover inwards this album is simply howling that. Gone are the subdued red-brown colourings of Let The Devil In and in its stead is stark, old school, fundamental black and white. Corpse paint. Hooded robes. True black fucking metal.
And the sound?
From the first breath that riff and freezing harsh melody is unmistakable. Shatraug. Utterly cleaving through ice to get that tone it saws through your brain in the process with no remorse or pity. If Let The Devil In had some sense of ritualistic refinement in the violence, ‘Feeding The Crawling Shadows’ tears out of a place of raw, bellowing havoc. And yet they share those riffs. They are of the same blood. There is a cavernous addition to the vocal sound here, a boom of thunder to the drums as though a layer of studio technique has been peeled back and the raw flesh of the band exposed. It isn’t that they have gone back to the more primitive construction of the songs on ‘Satanic Black Devotion,’ but they have brought some of its truly feral nature back to the fore of their sound. It works. It works so very well. It hits that perfect dark, sweet spot where non-fans of black metal hear some fucking awful whirlwind of noise thankfully but we hear those chilling melodies and every subtle shift of time and rhythm.
And there is a subtlety in this beast: Whether it’s the superb melody of ‘In Charnel Dreams’ or the vocal and pace variations within ‘Snares Of Impurity’ Sargeist are truly adept assassins. Yes this is driving, or driven, music that never lets its hands slip from your throat but their phrasing never becomes stale. ‘The Unspoken Ones’ is a perfect example; when it drops into as close to a breakdown as Sargeist ever get it does that perfect gear downshift that cranks up the torque and just hammers through your walls. The almost punkish spikes in the beginning of ‘Kingdom Below’ move in and out of the majestic melodic guitar line with ease, resurfacing throughout the song and delivering a punishing attack full of bludgeon and teeth.
Sargeist just don’t sound like anyone else; others try (and fail) to sound like them but they stand apart and are unique in a tight, focused Finnish scene. Whether you prefer this to ‘Let The Devil In’ will be a minor matter of taste and will only become clear as the months and years roll on. But now, in this moment, this is as perfect a demonstration that in Finland the true heart of black metal still glistens in the darkness and beats with cold, determined frost and that Sargeist are in the ascendancy. It is only March but if there is a better album of raw, orthodox but unique black metal this year I will be amazed.
If you like black metal you need to buy this. Now. End of.
(9/10 Gizmo)
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