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Rating: It has been out - for more than a year already, indeed - the latest product from the Immortal house, with Demonaz taking care of the vocal parts and guitars, the same that caused his tendinitis, mainly due to the material contained in the first records, with riffs shot at supersonic speed.
So Demonaz returns to wield "the chordophone ax," while maintaining a certain musical persistence concerning the band's sonic evolution, essentially continuing to forge those rocky and "thrashy" riffs inaugurated by Abbath in the famous At the Heart of Winter.
Speaking of Abbath: he's no longer here, due to internal differences within the band. This explains Demonaz's return to the guitars, who in past years had limited himself to playing the role of the Norwegian Mogol, only writing the song lyrics. Demonaz also decides to sing. In this regard, it is evident that his scream is very similar to his former colleague's, just more pulled and dirty, in tune with the mood of this new album.
Observing the artwork and listening to the title track and Into Battle Ride - the first two tracks of the album -, it seems that the band wants to evoke the icy darkness of the historic Pure Holocaust, but the Nordic mid-tempo Gates to Blashyrkh, on the other hand, refers to more recent works, as do Where Mountains Rise and Mighty Ravendark. More heavy/thrash is Grim and Dark.
Even though the climate has become dirtier and darker - also thanks to more "muddled" sounds - there is underlying predictability that left me somewhat puzzled. The album is good, Demonaz manages to uphold the band's name, but I have to say - going a bit against the tide - that I greatly missed Abbath's absence. Moreover, I find that the album suffers from a textual and musical stagnation that inevitably makes the final result more insipid.
Although, I repeat, the vocals are convincing, I find that Abbath's more varied and interpretive tone is unparalleled. In addition, I find that in the three previous albums, the band was able to preserve its trademark, but from album to album, subtly shifted towards "atmospheric-stylistic" divergences that made a difference: from the infernal and epic Damned in Black, to the icy and powerful Sons of Northern Darkness, up to the Nordic and melodic All Shall Fall.
This album also presents a sudden change of atmosphere, which personally, did not manage to convince me; and as I ventured into the depths of this valid tracklist, I was perpetually disturbed by the sensation of listening to the same old warmed-up soup. It's an album more of craft than of heart, well played - in this sense Horgh, always amazing on drums, one of the best in the black scene - and doesn't present any real compositional flaws. However, the truth is that All Shall Fall, I liked much more...
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