Satyricon – “Nemesis Divina”
This release is a pure exercise in testing the limits of how fast and brutal a band can be. Much like IMMORTALS “Battle In the North”, this album takes previous elements of speed and pushes them to the thresh hold of capacity. This is actually one of the rawer black metal releases that you’ll hear this year. Interestingly enough, this band is also diverse because you will hear more than just speed here. What you’ll find is well-constructed songs that showcase the creativity that is possible in the realm of black metal. You will find some totally unexpected details here. For example song number four, “Du Som Hater Gud”, has piano melody towards the second half of the song. What is weird about this? This song is of course totally full-speed chaos, yet there’s this nice, classical piano melody in it. How many bands could pull off piano parts in their songs and actually make it work? If you like SATYRICON’S previous outputs, you will definitely enjoy this one too. Satyr, the vocalist, sounds as hateful as ever, while Frost, drummer, plays as fast as humanly possible. Songs such as, “Immortality Passion” and “The Dawn of A New Age”, fulfill their promise to torture your ears until you want more. By the way, the guitar riffs should show once and for all that black metal is not just wearing corpse paint, but that it is actually a musical characteristic, i.e. learn to play this stuff before you call your band black metal!