Artist: Lake of Blood
Title: As Time and Tide Erodes Stone
Type: Album
Label: Human Jigsaw Records

Lake of Blood pledges allegiance to the recent wave of 'environmental' Black Metal, a ‘movement’ started by Wolves in the Throne Room, apparently (according to their press-sheet).The release clocks at around 30 minutes and consists of two tracks. It takes influences from Enslaved, Drudkh, Weakling, Wolves in the Throne Room (of course) with even some Deathspell Omega and Primordial lurking in there (from what I can hear). Whilst the combination of these bands may sound like an ideal musical entity to some, I wouldn’t go as far as saying that this is the case here (not even close). Lake of Blood’s debut full-length is a confident performance… If it wasn’t for this confidence I’m not sure how well the frequent stop-and-go moments would work; the impression of well thought-out songs/structures is given.

Production is essentially as grim as it is dark. No overproduced studio-magic here, just a black metal sound as it should be. I’m slightly unsure about the drums on this record, though. At times they (the snare mostly) seem disturbing as the drum sounds pierces through the entire mix, when it should clearly be in the background. A shame also is the lack of a guitar lead sound, some really nice ideas are lost, as they are played with no delay/reverb whatsoever, sounding out-of-place, rather than majestic/epic as they had the full potential to. On other occasions, however, the use of acoustic guitar-work sounds very nicely indeed and adds to the atmosphere. The bass sound is also very fitting to the music. Vocals are what you’d expect, somewhere in the Dissection sort-a-mould.

All things considered, Lake of Blood are on the right path when it comes to this ‘environ-mentalist’ Black Metal, a genre I don’t see much potential in… neither do I understand the point of it/need for it. Anyhow, the album is full of variation, justifying these long tracks, there’s subtle elements of doom, thrash and death metal in there as well, that keep things quite interesting. There are some glimpses of excellent sing-along choruses throughout, which makes you wonder if writing six shorter songs might have been a better idea. Then again, I’m certain fans of this genre will find this record quite exciting and satisfying. I would definitely go as far as concluding that it is a good debut album.

http://www.myspace.com/lakeovblood