I
Between Two Worlds

It is a great honor for me to review this CD, on which, OBVIOUSLY, dear Nuclear Blast couldn't help but speculate as much as possible, among other things announcing this as the new band of Abbath (true!) and Demonaz (!!!) when the poor (now) former guitarist has no role other than behind the scenes!!

Initial controversies aside, let's start talking musically about this CD! It kicks off immediately at full speed with "The Storm I Ride", which at times seems very much like power metal to me, but in general, it is nothing more than a hybrid of Motorhead and... something else (which clearly includes power metal... and this is a bad thing!!). The song isn’t bad, but it's obvious that it's fair to expect something more!

Already with the next track "Warriors", we start to get somewhere, changing gears with an epic mid-tempo that, in addition to very closely resembling the latest Immortal, seems to immerse us in a Norwegian forest wrapped in snow, where echoes of Bathory gently emerge! The following title track features the same characteristics as the preceding one, hence a lot of epicness and echoes of Immortal are very much alive... It's impossible not to think of them when listening to the sound of these guitars! This too is a very engaging mid-tempo. "Battalions" already helps to push harder on the accelerator, but we return to rough and "powerful" shores (even a bit too much...) which nonetheless tend to wink at Abbath's past. There’s no doubt that if instead of Abbath’s gravelly voice and the very black-inspired guitars there had been an ordinary Timo Kotipelto (just to name one...), Helloween-like guitars (sound-wise) and a sprinkling of keys now and then, it would have been a power song without problems!

"Mountains" is again a mid-tempo, the epicness returns, and it's not bad at all! The next track follows the same stylistic traits and proves to be one of the album’s peaks... Not bad!! The next song, with its 7:13 duration, is the longest on the album and right from the start proves to be very majestic and epic. The tempos slow down and with these notes, it almost feels like being transported into the middle of a battle that couldn’t be more epic! Here, for once, there is no trace of Immortal, although Bathory peeks through and their influence is truly massive!! Joking aside, we come to "Cursed We Are", the last song on the CD which starts very punchy with some very thrashy riffs. It’s hard to describe; if at first it may seem like the classic Immortal song, it then completely changes, even arriving at a sort of chorus!!

In essence, this is an album that deserves attention; it attempts to be original, even if it succeeds only partially, but the quality is there and it shows! However, some tracks seem like leftover Immortal songs (sometimes it’s really obvious…), but at least this is compensated by other good innovative ideas found throughout the album!
A small positive note goes to Abbath's vocals... Sure, the Popeye-like scream is a bit too extreme for this CD and is too explicit a nod to Immortal, considering also the cop... I mean "inspired" tracks by them, but on this CD, it sounds like Popeye at 90 years old!! Oh come on!!