Istapp – Sól Tér Sortna Review

By Doom_et_Al

Not many bands can claim to have a 4.5 from AMG Himself and a 4.0 from notorious curmudgeon, Grier. Yet that is exactly what Swedish black metal band, Istapp (Icicle) managed to achieve with debut album, Blekinge, and third album, The Insidious Star, respectively. Yet despite these glowing endorsements, Istapp remained on the periphery of the metal scene since their inception in 2005. Maybe it’s the long turnaround time between albums (4 in 20 years), or perhaps it’s the constantly shifting band line-up. Whatever the reason, Istapp remained relatively obscure, producing albums that people like, but that don’t make any dents in end-of-year lists. Now they’re back after a 6-year gap, with (surprise!) a new lineup and a new album, Sól Tér Sortna (The Sun Turns Dark). Are they about to add a Doom 4.0 to their accolades?

Pretty much the only constant in Istapp is founder, songwriter, and vocalist-turned-drummer, Fjalar. And when the opening notes of “Under Jökelisen” begin, you’ll know this is a classic Istapp album, through and through. Melodic chords married to furious blast beats in a way that is both compelling and accessible (by black metal standards). But it’s when the clean vocals hit that the true power of Istapp shines – the ability to incorporate more accessible elements without compromising their core ethos. Istapp manage to sound like a cool mix of Borknagar, Immortal, and Svavelvinter, without ever treading onto “derivative” territory. If this description of Sól Tér Sortna sounds eerily familiar to previous albums, that’s because Istapp maintain the clear, distinctive sound that they’ve perfected since 2005.

And yet, for some reason, Sól Tér Sortna just doesn’t hit as hard as those previous albums. And I’ve spent a week trying to puzzle out why. Certainly, when a sound remains unchanged for this long, we start entering “diminishing returns” territory. Istapp are playing it very safe with their aesthetic, and when you become familiar with it, it all starts to blur together. This isn’t helped by the fact that this collection lacks a real banger; something that grabs you by the short and curlys and says, “Listen! This is more interesting than that random chore you are doing!” When the band does try something new, like the introduction of female vocals on “Rägnarok,” it works fantastically, making you wish they had taken a few more risks. The songs on Sól Tér Sortna are consistently very good, but rarely great.

The production, as consistent as it is, also sounds weirdly thin. It’s hard to explain, but there’s a chonkiness missing from the guitars. This anemic mix leeches the album of some of its power. Istapp always flourished by relying on those “big” moments in their material; the flattened range makes everything sound a bit tinny and flat. For comparison, I went back to early Immortal, and while the production in those days was clearly inferior, there is real oomph behind the guitars. Even The Insidious Star sounded better balanced. I’m not certain if this production was intentional or not, but it doesn’t help the music.

Sól Tér Sortna is an album I really wanted to love, but although its catchy melodies and solid songwriting initially seduced me, I could never firmly commit. It’s a collection that, although never difficult to listen to, is missing something. This is speculation, but perhaps the constant lineup shifts have prevented Fjalar from evolving his brand. Perhaps this is simply the AMG “Law of Diminishing Returns” proving itself again as a band enters its third decade. Or maybe I expected too much from a band that has given us plenty to cheer about in the past. Regardless, Sól Tér Sortna, while rock-solid, simply doesn’t hit like other Istapp material. As a result, it eludes the unqualified Doom stamp of approval.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: trollzorn.de/en
Websites: istappofficial.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/IstappOfficial
Releases Worldwide: March 6th, 2025

#2025 #30 #BlackMetal #Borknagar #Immortal #Istapp #Mar25 #Review #Reviews #SwedishMetal #TrollzornRecords

Havukruunu – Tavastland Review

By Dr. A.N. Grier

For a band that’s only been releasing full-lengths for ten years, Havukruunu has been hella prolific, not only with releases in general but with great releases. Also, each album seems to be better than the next. The coolest part about their sound is that they’ve proved more can be milked from bands like Bathory and Immortal.1 Be it the melodic interludes, big Viking choirs, or endless riff changes, Havukruunu continues to bring inspiration with each new record. Which, as hinted at, is difficult to do with a style that has been around since the ’80s and ’90s. And it’s no different for this year’s Tavastland. It’s a fifty-plus-minute journey of Viking and metal culture that’ll have you banging your head, swimming in oceans of melodic beauty, and barking out anthems of an ancient time never forgotten.

The most unique aspect of Tavastland is that the band’s original vocalist and bassist has returned. But, by the time the debut record, Havulinnaan, landed in 2015, Humö only played a minor role in the band. Years later, he’s back to offer up his bass to the crushing riffs of Havukruunu’s sound. Never a band to dismiss the bassist when writing and mixing releases, Humö displays perhaps the strongest bass performance of Havukruunu’s career. Rumbling like a fucking madman, songs like “De miseriis fennorum” are made even more impactful by his bass performance. That is quite the feat with a band that’s always had stellar dual guitar performances and drum work that’s every bit as meaningful to the band’s success as the other instruments. So, crank up them cans and prepare to be blugdeoned to death by Tavastland.

As with most of the band’s output, Tavastland contains a specific theme in the lyrics and the track layout. Case in point, the opener and closer begin with spoken introductions before the chaos ensues. These two tracks are also the longest and, without a doubt, the album’s epics. The opening track, “Kuolematon laulunhenki,” invokes more Immortal than the rest of the album as an icy, black metal lick kicks into high gear before the inevitable riff changes begin. When it comes, it comes with a dual fretboard display that erupts into a heavy fucking riff supported with a vicious vocal performance. Immediately, you understand the bass influence as Humö tears the fucking roof down. When the Viking choirs arrive, the Bathoryisms creep in and get stronger with each iteration. “De miseriis fennorum” similarly closes the album but with stronger Bathory influences and some old-school metal elements. When it settles in, the punchy vocals emphasize the riffs as voice and instruments work together. One of the coolest transitions comes when the bass abandons the guitars in favor of blastbeating along with the drums. Fucking goosebump inducing. As the song builds, we are treated with old-school Mercyful Fate dueling guitar work and a soothing Viking outro that would make Quorthon smile from ear to ear.

Between these bookmarks, you’ll find even more to love about Tavastland. Be it black metal assaults, impressive solos, melodic passages, Viking choirs, or even thrash, Havukruunu is here to take you for a fucking ride. “Havukruunu ja talvenvarjo” fires out the gates with a bass-heavy, blistering-fast black metal charge that transitions into another surprising twist. This time, it comes with a slick build-up that includes alternating acoustic and distorted guitars that somehow work. As the relentless bass pushes on, another twist arrives in the form of layered growls that hit harder than ever. The title track is another fantastic song with a lot of heart—lyrically and instrumentally. Using the same layered vocal style as the previous track, it tramps along before the envelope cracks open to reveal gorgeous strings and Viking choirs, cementing this beauty into your brain. “Unissakävijä” is another unique piece for its odd combination of thrashy riffs, melodic wonderness, and massive Viking choirs that set up the track before the blitzkrieg hits—though it’s a bit on the long side.

Not only does Tavastland continue to show a band that never disappoints—and continues to get better—but it’s one of their best-produced records. While 2020’s Uinuos syömein sota still gets a lot of spins in the Grier household, the compressed master is my biggest complaint. Now that Havukruunu is with Svart Records, maybe that will change. Because Tavastland is quite dynamic, allowing all the elements I’ve mentioned to rise to the top and slip to the background as needed. In an album completely submersed in killer tracks, some, like “Yönsynty,” aren’t as strong as others. Though it’s still a strong song, it can’t stand up with the rest of the incredible tracks on the album. That said, Tavastland is an AotY contender (again), and fans of the group will love it.

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Svart Records
Websites: havukruunu.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/havukruunu
Releases Worldwide: February 28th, 2025

#2025 #40 #Bathory #BlackMetal #Feb25 #FinnishMetal #Havukruunu #Immortal #MercyfulFate #PaganMetal #Review #Reviews #SvartRecords #Tavastland #VikingMetal

Arkaist – Aube Noir Review

By Doom_et_Al

A few years ago, my girlfriend and I went to a well-renowned barista in Paris. He was amicable and efficient, and when he handed my girlfriend her latte she enquired if she could have it with some sugar. “No,” he cheerfully rejoined. And that was the end of the conversation. I still smile when I think about this event because it sums up a lot of what I love about the French: quirky and uncompromising. Don’t fuck up their beautiful drink with your primitive sugar. The same attitude is what makes their black metal so endearing and interesting. So much of it is original and avant-garde and just… French. So I was intrigued to review Aube Noir, the debut of a new metal outfit, Arkaist, formed in 2023 by two stalwarts of the French underground scene, Beobachtan and Maeror. It also arrives on the well-regarded label Antiq. Much to be excited about. Lord knows I could do with some strong French coffee…

The first thing to note is that French may be, but Arkaist’s sound is much more closely related to their second-wave Norwegian counterparts. This is very straight-down-the-line black metal that borrows heavily from Immortal and Darkthrone. And this is where we hit the first snag. Aube Noir is so poker-faced and derivative that very little of it stands out. Arkaist surely have an identity, but you would be hard-pressed to find it on their debut. The music suggests they are aiming for something raw and scary, but the lyrics – focused as they are on the philosophy of a decaying society – muddy the waters by proposing introspective and intellectual ideas. The songs themselves are neither riffy enough to count as catchy black metal, nor fuzzy and distorted for a more atmospheric vibe. The result is an album that is unsure of what it is, and as a result, plays things far too safe.

This “safety first” approach is further evidenced in the compositions themselves. Beyond some nice moments here and there, they’re entirely formulaic. Chords move up and down with the unpredictability of a porn film. The structure is rigid with very few explorations beyond the most banal and unadventurous (“Ode à la haine” sounds like it lives and breathes its entire 4-minute run time in 5 notes). The whole endeavor can perhaps best be summed up by Maeror’s vocal performance. It is repetitive and one-note, lacking any real feeling or variation. Inexplicably, it is brought to the front of the mix, perhaps to hide the dearth of music ideas backing it.

It’s not all doom and gloom, of course. These are seasoned musicians, so there are some good moments here and there. “Terre ancestrale” has an interesting chant to begin proceedings, before launching into crunchy, mid-paced black metal that hits the spot. “Puer Aeternus” injects some feeling into a satisfying close. These moments paradoxically frustrate because they show what Arkaist are capable of, but so haphazardly deliver. The whole album has an authentically malevolent sheen, lending it an aura of authenticity. The downside is that the guitars are muddied at the expense of the unexciting vocals, creating a nondescript blur.

Aube Noir, then, is ultimately hugely disappointing. An exciting project from seasoned musicians on a discerning label? Combined with the fact that French metal is usually chock-full of character and personality? This thing checks so many interesting boxes. What we have instead is bland and lacklustre; music devoid of any sense of direction or personality. Songs that can’t decide what they’re going for beyond sounding kvlt. Arkaist need to inject some personality and drive into their material fast. In the meantime, there’s better coffee to be found elsewhere.

Rating: 1.5/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Antiq Records
Websites: arkaist.bandcamp.com/album/aube-noire | www.facebook.com/p/Arkaist
Releases Worldwide: February 24th, 2025

#15 #2025 #AntiqRecords #Arkaist #AubeNoir #BlackMetal #Darkthrone #Feb25 #FrenchMetal #Immortal #Review #Reviews

Fell Omen – Invaded by a Dark Spirit Review

By Thus Spoke

If you’re especially in the know, you might already be familiar with the artist behind Fell Omen, Spider of Pynx. Having contributed hurdy-gurdy and electronica skills to two different Spectral Lore records under this moniker, he has also created cover art for Auriferous Flame, Cirkeln, and Μπατουσκα, under the name Gilded Panoply. After years of lurking about the black metal scene, with Invaded by a Dark Spirit, the Spider has the chance to step out of the background and begin their officially ‘metal’ musical arc as Fell Omen.1 Here for a good time, and not a long time, with a runtime barely surpassing 20 minutes,2 Invaded by a Dark Spirit is a lightning round in Fell Omen’s raucous take on black metal.

Invaded by a Dark Spirit is characterized by two main facets: punky attitude and crusty sound—though it’s not exactly crust-punk stylistically. While there are hints of Wormwitch here and there, this is combined with an old Immortal vibe about the riffs and vocals, as well as frequent use of hurdy-gurdy. Rambunctious rhythms and refrains abound (“Dungeon Metal Punks Besieging Digital Castles,” “Warrior Jar,” “In the Poison Swamp”). The record maintains this rough and ready tone throughout: while there is a subtly different flair to individual tracks, there’s not a lot to actually distinguish them. Opener “Don’t Go Hollow, You Have Steel,”3, showcases everything you will hear for the rest of the record, with the exception of vocals, which here are restricted to the occasional snarled “eaaaagh!” The low-fi production which brings the fuzz and distortion, and that faraway washy quality to the vocals, contributes to the album’s coarseness and the sense of a gutsy spirit. But it equally brings the above uniformity into the realm of the problematic, as well as generating some problems of its own.

Rawness itself is not the issue, it’s how this rawness negatively affects Fell Omen’s compositions. Good raw black metal is a biting assault that can be beautiful or brutal. But in the case of Invaded by a Dark Spirit, the grittiness makes everything bland or bothersome. Hurdy-gurdy, sitting right at the front of the mix, wailing its refrain through the cellophane wrapping of the master, like a fucking kazoo, is jarring in a way I had not experienced before. And it is used a lot. That being said, the actual guitar is also prone to flights of wobbly fancy that imitate the hurdy-gurdy’s mannerisms in a way that blurs the line between them. This guitar sound could be cool, and in fact sometimes actually is (“Dungeon Metal…,” “In the Poison Swamp”), but the milquetoast package it comes in saps that coolness away. Programmed and acoustic drums alike sound akin to a stock keyboard ‘drum’ noise and are thus indistinguishable. Pointlessly brief flashes of synth get thrown in for no identifiable reason other than a whim (“Dungeon Metal…,” “Forlorn Knights and Strange Flasks”, tricking the listener into thinking that something interesting might be about to happen. Even setting aside particular noises that might be personal triggers, the songs are boring: monotonous in their vaguely repetitious way and stultified by the veil of grime.

While there are some admittedly catchy grooves sprinkled around Invaded by a Dark Spirit, the above problems block proper enjoyment of them. “In the Poison Swamp” is the closest thing to a “banger” with its infectious rhythms and well-timed “rawwrr”s working well off of the bendy guitar lines. It’s a shame it comes last. Others (“Don’t Go Hollow…,” “Warrior Jar”) can get your head bobbing well enough, and if you strain your ears just right, the whining melodies (hurdy-gurdy or otherwise) sound almost gnarly. Yet nothing is gripping; nothing is sufficiently slick, raw, or savage enough to capitalize on the low-fi sound and make this the rollicking riot it could so easily have been. Rather, it all feels anodyne, distant, and placid.

For an album that only lasts around 20 minutes, Invaded by a Fell Spirit is a drag to get through; unless, that is, you just ignore it, which is relatively easy to do. Fell Omen can craft some fun grooves, and there is some cool stuff going on with the guitar distortion and hurdy-gurdy, but these are superseded by the monotony and paradoxical blandness of it all. You can have a good time with selected tracks, but it doesn’t diminish the fact that Invaded by a Dark Spirit is nothing like the boisterous, epic tale it pretends to be.

Rating: Disappointing
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: True Cult Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: February 14th, 2025

#20 #2025 #BlackMetal #Crust #CrustPunk #DungeonSynth #Feb25 #FellOmen #GreekMetal #Immortal #InvadedByADarkSpirit #RawBlackMetal #Review #Reviews #TrueCultRecords #Wormwitch

Fumes – Skeletal Wings Threshold Review

By Alekhines Gun

As we slide from the snow-filled January to the rainy and fog-laced February, the mission remains the same: Checking out young hopefuls and their debut releases. This time on the roulette wheel of analysis is Fumes, a Mexican black metal band founded a mere three years ago. With sole EP Stellar Murders Upwards under their bullet belts,1 they’ve wasted no time in preparing their first full-length Skeletal Wings Domain. Is this the album to finally give Mexico a defined sound on the global scene, or do these wings need more meat on their bones?

Rejecting the stereotypical frosty Norwegian sound, Fumes present the listener with an album with a degree of weight to the compositions. Guitarists Henri and Alanis slather the album in meaty tones more adjacent to modern Ragnarok or Hades, with much more emphasis on bottom-end boom than trebly terrorizing. This gives a bounce and bite to the punky riffs, with songs constantly switching from obligatory melodic trems to Immortalized walk-in-place marching tempos. Moments like the outro of “Suppuration Tunnels” conjure up a genuinely evil mood, and solos litter the album with melodic flair while drummer Minos reliably blasts away in place. The sound is pleasing, immediate, and relatively accessible, with Alanis’s vocals echoing menacingly across the space with an expressive, enunciated bellow.

Where Skeletal Wings Threshold fails is in its memorability, and it fails in grand style. Things start well enough, true; “Stellar Ascension Infernal” wastes no time in going straight for the listener’s throat, but all too quickly Fumes suffer a startling dip in quality and album pacing. “Carrier of Venenifyer” doesn’t have enough interesting riffs to justify its six-minute run time, and multiple songs begin to fade into each other from bloat and pacing. Fumes try their best to offset this with heaps of solos, many of which are excellent (“Dead Morning Star” being a real highlight), but the end of such virtuosity leads right back to okay-tier riffing. Attempts at expected tempo assaults invariably give way to tired, slower passages, sounding less like tonal diversity and more like an album that refuses to commit to a mood. This inconstancy undermines the more impactful moments, reducing a full listen to far less than the sum of its parts.

Compounding this issue is the back half of the album, where Fumes saw fit to place no less than three interludes. These interludes are meandering, with no sense of flow or beauty, and seem to only pad out the album’s length. One of them is re-recorded from Stellar Murders Upwards, and still another ends the album in an outlandish attempt at post-auditory assault calm. There’s no need for three separate pauses in the music, and there’s certainly no need to stack them all in the back half of the album one after another. On top of that, the “real songs” from the EP were also re-recorded, stripping them of the raw charm the original production offered. Removing the re-recordings and two new interludes leaves us with five songs of descent to disposable black metal, and suggests the material would have best been served as a second EP. As it stands, songs replete with boilerplate hooks and bizarre track listing order give a sense of overwrought listening to an otherwise reasonable 38-minute runtime.

This is frustrating because I think Fumes can be a good band. Returning to “Suppuration Tunnels” in particular shows creative riffing, some deliciously dark-sounding moments, and a sudden grasp of good composition. But when taken as a whole body of work, Skeletal Wings Threshold doesn’t have the immediacy to stand next to its peers, let alone in the shadow of its influences. With their old material used up in re-recording, the real test will come at their next release. An extra tablespoon of blackened brutality, more immediate riffing, less interludes, and keeping those solos will do well in helping them carve a more memorable identity. For now, this is easy-listening black metal, from a threshold entirely disposable.

Rating: 2.0/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Personal Records
Websites: Album Bandcamp | Official Facebook Page
Releases Worldwide: February 7th, 2025

#20 #2025 #BlackMetal #Feb25 #Fumes #Hades #Immortal #MexicanMetal #PersonalRecords #Ragnarok #Review #Reviews #SkeletalWingsThreshold

The Great Old Ones – Kadath Review

By Eldritch Elitist

I’m not sure why The Great Old Ones continue to be lumped in with the post-black metal scene. Their general reliance on space-y tremolo riffs made sense of the post-black tag up through 2017’s EOD, but 2019’s Cosmicism felt so viscerally progressive as to displace the band from any notable acts under that particular genre umbrella. And yeah, sub-subgenre tags are thin by their very nature, but with the release of Kadath, the notion that The Great Old Ones remain “post” anything feels downright silly. The en-beefening of the band’s sound on Cosmicism grows more pronounced with Kadath; a riffier, more technically immediate record, and as large of an evolutionary step as one might expect following a lengthy gestation. As for whether Kadath’s heavier approach was worth the weight, the answer is as complicated as The Great Old Ones’ sound.

That sound’s intricately textured density remains, for me, one of the main selling points of The Great Old Ones. As with prior works, Kadath is a record informed by its atmosphere, that otherworldly feeling that the layers of reverb-drenched guitars obscure endless depths. That this aesthetic stays largely intact despite Kadath’s riff-forward nature is impressive. Opener “Me, the Dreamer” serves as a microcosm of this balance, its unpredictable shifts conjuring a sense of unease as the band explores territory seemingly inspired equally by Immortal and Blood Incantation. Kadath’s breadth of variety is markedly wider than any prior The Great Old Ones album, as tactful implementation of death metal heft and even gothic rock (See: “In the Mouth of Madness”) regularly serve a purpose. This makes Kadath a potentially ideal jumping off point for anyone new to the band who might otherwise be turned away by their post-black reputation.

As impressive as this evolution sounds on paper, Kadath’s bid at a more immediately gratifying take on The Great Old Ones sound leaves me feeling partially dissatisfied. I’ve enjoyed every moment I’ve spent with this record, but I rarely found myself hypnotically sinking into its atmosphere as I did with EOD and especially Cosmicism. Its regular tonal and structural songwriting pivots are superficially fun, yet often illogical in the scope of a full composition. The fifteen-minute “Leng,” while frequently beautiful, fails to link up its disparate sections in a fulfilling fashion. Conversely, at other times The Great Old Ones seem to consciously play things safe, relying on more straightforward (yet still lengthy) structures that lack rhythmic bite or a compelling atmosphere (“Astral Void (End of the Dream)”). It’s all good, but most of Kadath is merely just good, and I can’t help but wonder whether the shift in the majority of the band’s lineup is partially to blame.

The lineup shift is acutely felt behind the drum kit, as I detected the departure of Léo Isnard – one of my favorite drummers in black metal – in Kadath’s music even before reading the details on The Great Old Ones’ new lineup. It should be emphasized that new drummer Julian Deana is responsible for some of the album’s best passages; the power metal-like double bass drives in “Under the Sign of Koth,” for instance, help make that track one of Kadath’s best. Yet where the drum performances seemed to proactively shape the music on past releases, Kadath’s drumming feels more reactive and less adventurous. Deana’s performances are flawless and completely impressive on a technical level, but this seemingly unintentional shift in rhythmic philosophy has, for me, altered the shape of the band’s music. Kadath also sounds muddier from a production standpoint than its predecessor, and while some level of obscurity is crucial to The Great Old Ones’ atmosphere, this record’s many low-end riffs often blur together as a result.

I realize this review feels largely negative considering my insistence on Kadath’s goodness, but I’ve twice written about the reasons why I love The Great Old Ones’ music, and most of those reasons remain intact with this record. Kadath merely fails to live up to my personal expectations of what I’ve come to expect from this band, and as such, its shortcomings feel all the more glaring. Make no mistake: Kadath is a frequently captivating marriage of black metal riff craft and distinct artistic intent that could only come from The Great Old Ones. I’m not in love with all of its choices, but I’d rather this band present me with an ambitious pivot such as this over a hypothetical Cosmicism II.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Season of Mist
Websites: thegreatoldonessom.bandcamp.com | thegreatoldonesband.com | facebook.com/thegreatoldones
Releases Worldwide: January 24th, 2025

#2025 #30 #BlackMetal #BloodIncantation #FrenchMetal #Immortal #Jan25 #Kadath #Review #Reviews #SeasonOfMist #TheGreatOldOnes

Hesperia – Fra li Monti Sibillini Review

By El Cuervo

What could be better than beginning 2025 with black metal? I’ll tell you what could be better. Beginning 2025 with one-man-band black metal indulging in a level of excess that only an Italian taking 76 minutes over 14 tracks could. Seven prior full-length Hesperia releases have somehow flown under the Angry Metal Radar, so now I pay penance for our sin of ignorance. Fra li Monti Sibillini (Among the Sibillini Mountains) is a record centered around the nature and lore of a mountain range in central Italy. With such an overabundance of material on this record and across a discography that’s been largely ignored, this release should be terrible. But is it?

Hesperia brandish a type of black metal that’s fast, heavy, and vibrates with energy. The sharp, sawing riffs recall Immortal while their melodic knack recalls Moonsorrow. But the production has remarkable clarity and eschews the lo-fi aesthetic generally favored in black metal, enabling listeners to pick out all instruments in the mix. Because the guitars are distinct, their riffs and melodies are also distinct and represent some of the stand-out parts of Monti Sibillini. There are a load of highlights. The opening lead on “Il Regno de la Sibilla” has a beefy groove, while the closing lead on “La Fuga/La Salvezza” sounds like an icy howl. Likewise, the first riff on “Mons Daemoniacus: Nero Paese de la Scomunica” cuts like a curiously smart scythe and the passage from 2:15 on “l’Eretico, Il Necromante” swings heavily through a real headbanger. By contrast, the harsh vocals are the muddiest sound in the mix. This balances the clear guitars with something gravelly and wretched. It all fuses into some legitimately powerful black metal.

However, this is but one element of the Monti Sibillini sound and is arguably not the most important. Ambience, acoustic passages, and medieval interludes occupy more than half of the record’s run-time. The last of these blends pastoral soundscapes (animals, villagers, festivals) with folkloric instrumentation (strings, whistles, bells) to flesh out the story and themes. These ‘light’ strands aren’t particularly integrated with the ‘heavy’ strands. Transitions from black metal to folk, or vice versa, aren’t sophisticated and generally occur simply by stopping one and starting the other. Given the evident importance of the soundscapes and atmosphere generation to Hesperia, bridging the contrasting sounds more smoothly is an obvious point for future development. Monti Sibillini isn’t folk metal; it’s folk and metal. I further query the purpose of the four medieval interlude tracks when medieval interludes are built into the main songs anyway. They’re evocative but extraneous, adding ten minutes to an album that’s already over-long.

But the greater weakness on Monti Sibillini is how Hesperia are seemingly incapable of sticking to one idea. “l’Qrrivo a l’Hostaria” forms an early microcosm for the whole album. It doesn’t give you an opportunity to get your teeth into any of the incisive black metal or the moody synths or the medieval curiosities as the songs flips between each multiple times within its five-minute duration. The black metal teases something dark and aggressive but can’t build momentum because it constantly interrupts itself with intriguing but incessant atmospherics and soundscapes. “Il Regno de la Sibilla” is the first of a few long songs and despite its strong constituent elements, I can’t describe it as strong overall because it chops and changes so frequently. This is undoubtedly exacerbated by the blunt transitions documented above. Monti Sibillini makes for a frustrating experience as its music doesn’t feel as subtle or dynamic as it should be.

I sincerely struggled with scoring this review. There’s great quality in Monti Sibillini but it’s buried by annoyingly choppy songwriting. The constituent elements are persistently very good but it’s so fragmented that any enjoyment I glean is fundamentally undermined. It ultimately leaves me asking a question: why couldn’t have Hesperia trusted the listener to not become bored after more than 90 seconds of one sound? Why couldn’t the composite parts be fused together more neatly? Why couldn’t we have more of the black metal? If the band can create an album that doesn’t force me to ask these questions then we could have something great.

Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Hammerheart Records
Website: hesperia.bandcamp.com (managed by Hammerheart Records)
Releases worldwide: January 17th, 2024

#25 #2025 #AtmosphericBlackMetal #BlackMetal #FolkMetal #FraLiMontiSibillini #Hesperia #Immortal #ItalianMetal #Jan25 #Moonsorrow #Review #Reviews