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I found this piece randomly while scrolling through YouTube and the first thing that pushed me to listen was the whimsical and menacing cover of this album. It just fits perfectly with the eerie and dark ambience of the record and is, for me, one of the best covers out there (oh, and the band's logo is as amazing as the whole concept, and I personally prefer this one over the "Empire of Blood" one).
The tracks are a mix of fast-paced riffs and aggressive drums and melodic, slow and sorrowful riffs, which are both present in almost every track. My personal favorite is "The Floating Blue Witchlight" (2nd track). It starts with a romantic and melodic riff and switches to fast-paced riffs in a second. Just brilliant. The two instrumental tracks are just PURE EVIL. "Valley of the Shadow" is an interesting sample of what Akhtya (aka. Michael W. Ford) can do when it comes to ambient evil songs, better shown in a later album "Moon of Characith".
The production is what I expected from a 90's underground black metal band, a raw production that was supposed to sound evil and kind of "annoying" sometimes. But this production fits perfectly into the ambience of the songs, especially in the instrumental ones.
The one thing I have to say that's bad about this record is that it's short for a black metal LP (otherwise it would be a 100% rating). If it had two or three more tracks it would just be great. They could have recorded songs from the previous demo, "Journeys into Horizons Lost". That would be so awesome...
Besides that, this album changed my perspective on USBM. I was always skeptical about listening to USBM bands because I was blinded by the Norwegian and Swedish black metal scene. Turns out I was wrong and this is certainly my favorite black metal album. I have a T-shirt and a copy of this album on CD, and I never regret the money I spent!
That was my review. I don't think many people will read this, but I wanted to share my opinion of this absolute masterpiece and I hope someone will love this record as much as I do!!
- Metal Archives review.
I found this piece randomly while scrolling through YouTube and the first thing that pushed me to listen was the whimsical and menacing cover of this album. It just fits perfectly with the eerie and dark ambience of the record and is, for me, one of the best covers out there (oh, and the band's logo is as amazing as the whole concept, and I personally prefer this one over the "Empire of Blood" one).
The tracks are a mix of fast-paced riffs and aggressive drums and melodic, slow and sorrowful riffs, which are both present in almost every track. My personal favorite is "The Floating Blue Witchlight" (2nd track). It starts with a romantic and melodic riff and switches to fast-paced riffs in a second. Just brilliant. The two instrumental tracks are just PURE EVIL. "Valley of the Shadow" is an interesting sample of what Akhtya (aka. Michael W. Ford) can do when it comes to ambient evil songs, better shown in a later album "Moon of Characith".
The production is what I expected from a 90's underground black metal band, a raw production that was supposed to sound evil and kind of "annoying" sometimes. But this production fits perfectly into the ambience of the songs, especially in the instrumental ones.
The one thing I have to say that's bad about this record is that it's short for a black metal LP (otherwise it would be a 100% rating). If it had two or three more tracks it would just be great. They could have recorded songs from the previous demo, "Journeys into Horizons Lost". That would be so awesome...
Besides that, this album changed my perspective on USBM. I was always skeptical about listening to USBM bands because I was blinded by the Norwegian and Swedish black metal scene. Turns out I was wrong and this is certainly my favorite black metal album. I have a T-shirt and a copy of this album on CD, and I never regret the money I spent!
That was my review. I don't think many people will read this, but I wanted to share my opinion of this absolute masterpiece and I hope someone will love this record as much as I do!!
- Metal Archives review.