Norway's Enthral originally released this, their debut album, on Shagrath's own Hot Records back in 1997. Hot Records are long gone, so this is a deserved re-issue by Russian label Frostscald Records.
Even though this was released past the prime of Norway's black metal explosion, I can't help but feel misty eyed over its grim and bitter old school vibe. Biting Norwegian lyrics spat with venom? Treble-filled guitars waspishly tremolo picked to hell? Regular patches of blastbeat-a-rama? Of course, all that and more. However, don't be fooled into thinking this is just another clone of the era's more infamous bands. This album is pretty damn outlandish for a black metal album of its time, more befitting the sound a proggier, more angry and grim Fleurety would've perhaps come up with during their early days. Yep, the songs are pretty much progressive in nature, winding and churning like some sort of hellish re-occuring nightmare (in a good way, naturally!). The bass is quite audible on this release too, which again doesn't fit into a lot of the old 2nd wave Black Metal that rose from the depths of Scandinavia, but it's actually pretty decent on this album it's hard to describe, as it just seems to 'work' in the overall sound of the CD.
The 7 song lengths range from 8-12 minutes, usually sticking to a regular pattern of song writing, changing little bits of riff here and there, before sweeping around the scales and time signatures and throwing in the occasional sections of clean female vocals to add a slightly gothic edge. Perhaps it's the grim, glacial melodies that are fired at you over and over until they become wedged deep into your cranium like some sort of audio icicle, but there's a really cold, morbid tone that surrounds this album and I really have began to love it. Weirdly, even though the bands aren't similar in the slightest, I'm reminded of 'The Red in the Sky is Ours' era At the Gates when it comes to songwriting, thus really over the top, crazy riffs all piled in with a touch of the weird thrown in for good measure.
At first it didn't quite grab me to be fully honest, but given time to sink in, it's genuinely seeped into my subconscious like frostbite. It's far from an immediate album, but if you're a fan of the old Norse black metal vibe, and don't mind long winding songs, this could be well be the album for you if you give it plenty of time to grow.
http://www.myspace.com/trueenthral
