Whereas The Ramones may have been “out there having fun, yeah, in the warm California sun,” poor old USBM band Battle Dalgorath must hate their climate. One look at the cover of their second album is enough to send a shiver down your spine and I can assure you that musically they are just as grim and frostbitten. Debut album ‘Eternal Throne,’ was a good enough exercise in blending a battering blackened mindset with moments of atmospheric ambience and I was interested to hear where they had gone from there and was quite surprised on first listen to this as it strikes as a band who have both matured and tightened everything up a notch.
First track ‘Spirits of Winter Darkness’ strikes as similar to the way they opened their last opus although the sounds of wind is if anything harsher. The keyboard sound again provided by Swiss native Vinterriket and is coldly atmospheric and this is a great mood setter for what is to come. That is presented in the form of ‘Empire of Imperial Shadows’ which bombs in with ferocious blastbeats and rapacious guitar onslaught. Black Sorcerer BattleAxe may have one of the daftest names out there but there is nothing to laugh at about his throat ripping shrieks that come from slightly behind the instrumental assault, rise and forcefully overpower. The song also decides to place some strident guitar tones over everything else as it progresses, adding to the sinister cold feel and really standing out as something a bit different to the simple punishing flow. The song is not yet out of ideas, ominous clanks perpetuate and shrieks and scary reverb enhanced spoken words sinisterly come out the void, capturing the imagination and keeping things interesting right up to the 12 minute mark. After creating an unrelenting blitzkrieg on the next number the group change tack again and evolve things into a meandering ambient passage which also works very nicely indeed before the hammer blows of ‘Spellbound Requiem Of The Winter’ blaze back in. Keys are back, sweeping over ‘Kingdom of Black Abyss,’ reminiscent of early Mortiis, Burzum and Summoning, it is evident this has a true Norwegian feel about it and as the cracking pace flurries back like a blizzard it is also obvious that Battle Dalgorath really have surpassed themselves on their second album.
Perhaps it would have been a good move to finish the album here, 46 minutes in but they have another track and 20 minutes left. ‘Ancient Spectre Of Oblivion’ has tolling bells, buzzing flies and then a sparse passage of never-ending drone. It’s up to the listener to take up the challenge of this as I have done twice but for me future plays will see the stop button pressed early. Apart from that small niggle this is highly worth checking out.
http://www.myspace.com/battledagorath
