Not to be confused with the Czech or Finnish black metal bands of the same name, here we have the Norwegian band back with their second album, following on from 2023’s ‘Ad Nauseum’. Mind you the band has been through quite a change since then as originally this was a two-man project with just drummer A.A. and bassist/guitarist E.F, who recorded the debut with session singer E.T.S. Since then E.F. has left, E.T.S has joined on bass and vocals, together with guitarists M.F. and A.G. Heavily influenced by early Darkthrone, this is the type of black metal which makes the listener feel cold just by having it on the player. It captures the feeling of the dark and frozen north, the eternal night when evil walks the land, and if the cover art had shown a black and white photo of a group of guys wearing corpse paint standing in a snow-covered forest I would not have been surprised as there is a real bleakness about this.
There is not anything highly original, but sometimes a listener wants to find comfort in a style they are happy with and this certainly feels familiar. Mind you, there is inconsistency with the songs themselves, and I do wonder if it was self-produced as there are times when the drums fall away and they are almost marking time as opposed to delivering anything of real note. The result is a black metal album which may be of interest to some who feel that genre is the one true style of metal, but for those of us who have somewhat broader tastes will argue this is okay while it is being played but never much more than that, and certainly not one to which we will quickly be looking to return to. It is reasonably good, but rarely anything more than that.
Rating: 6/10