 |
Yeah, all right, so I don’t
know if I’m too keen about that “achieve the empowerment/of endless
mysterious nights” line, either, but the from-space guitar squealing
that serves as the outro to the subsequent “Denial of Salvation”
kind of renders the question moot. It’s just awesome. In the end, it’s
the guitars that matter more than the incomprehensible growling and what
it might be going on about. Such is the case, too, with Immortal’s
Sons of Northern Darkness, about which I won’t say much beyond
it totally rules. Immortal is the last man standing in the True Black
Metal game, what with Emperor now gone, so if you’re interested in
the genre at all, you need to hear this. It’s a synth-free exercise
in speed and proficiency and surprisingly melodic breaks, and it’s
a cinch to make my year’s-best list unless there are a whole lot of
really great records this year; for sheer holy-smokes sixteen-horses power,
Immortal’s awfully hard to beat. Still, questions linger. Immortal
springs directly from the scene that spawned the subgenre known in the underground
as NSBM, which stands for “National Socialist Black Metal,” and
they seem rather overly gung-ho about their own, um, northernness. Which
doesn’t make the twin-guitar crescendo at the center of the title track
any less impressive, or the expertly placed pause-for-emphasis in the chorus
any less effective: it’s breathtakingly great, gut-punching, involuntary-smile-producing
stuff. We here at Last Plane to Jakarta love every song on Sons
of Northern Darkness. We recommend it to you wholeheartedly and enthusiastically.
With a few profound reservations. |
|