Throne of Katarsis: Helvete – Det Iskalde Mørket
This is the third offering from this Candelight-signed Norwegian duo. It’s pretty much a continuation from their Unholy Holocaustwinds EP and debut album An Eternal Dark Horizon in so much as the sound and production are very similar if not identical.
Usually that would be a bad thing but not here. Throne of Katarsis have achieved something that a ton of bands in the genre try to do but fail: be old school. As with their earlier releases, Helvete – Det Iskalde Morket is rammed full of black old school atmosphere with big, long, reverb-soaked riffs and vocals pinned down by a great drum sound featuring deep orchestral fills and rolls.
There are some nice subtle acoustic guitar parts creeping around underneath the electric ones that also add a ton of that cold and morbid magic. Other parts also show flashes of excellence with plentiful – although I hate to draw comparison – Burzum style riffs. Their trademark lengthy tunes make up the main bulk of this album, again with the shortest song a little over six minutes, the longest weighs in at seventeen minutes!
There was something about Helvete – Det Iskalde Morket that took me a while to figure out: there are only, for my tastes, three proper songs out of the five as the two longest ones seem to be just three or four long passages stuck together.
While I think Throne of Katarsis have experimented and expanded on their previous writings, the longer songs feel unnecessarily long and a little tedious. That said they make great music for questing (if you plan online games) and if you’re a big fan of the band I’m sure you’ll love it.
Black Metal is dead. In the UK at least. Seeing as though it is the place that gave birth to the genre it is as fuckin’ useless a broke-dick dog. There is no scene to speak of, just the odd one or two equally useless bands trying in vain to mimic some of the more [...]
Opening with a song title of the length Bal Sagoth would be proud of (thankfully that’s as the only comparison to draw), the imaginatively titled ‘A Glimpse of the Image of Lucifer Gleaming Beyond the Subterraneous Black Sun’ marches forth. Mid paced, it stamps away with the precision of a well oiled Black Metal machine [...]
for some reason I’m not impressed.. decent, and that’s it..
Finally got it, thanks to Infamroth.
Well, it is fucking necro. Takes the old, and makes it older and bleaker.
Great.