Dark Fortress have long been untypical black metal band. Employing a more melodic flavour of the genre and having much better mixing/mastering than their peers, the band has slowly been carving out their own corner of the dark abyss with each release. And, after a break of 6 years, the band are now ready to unleash their latest offering, Spectres from the Old World.
The first two opening tracks “Nascence” and “Coalescence” provide a rather perfect introduction to the album with the songs being on the more traditional side of black metal with tremolo picked minor melodies and blast beats. It’s a rather nice welcome to the album and set the scene perfectly for what is to follow.
Which is potentially what you’d not expect. “The Spider in the Web” draws on some more of the progressive and melodic elements explored in some more recent albums and provides a perfect contrast to what has come before. The middle section with a big-band style drum pattern and clean guitars sound perfectly at home slotted in between the harsher sections of the song.
“Isa” is another track which bucks the trend ever so slightly with rather haunting clean guitar melodies dotted amongst the melodic black metal cake. The drums on this track in particular fit perfectly and are not overdone. For those wanting things a bit more ‘traditional’, worry not as following track “Pulling at Threads” will satisfy your longings. Blast beats, harsh vocals and dissonant guitar melodies take centre stage with the clean vocals providing a nice little cherry atop the aforementioned cake.
Rounding out the album “Swan Song” and “Nox Irae” provide the perfect balance of both traditional and modern progressive elements. The former takes the style shown in “Pulling at Threads” and is the longer of the two tracks but, in many ways, does not feel like a long track per se. The latter is sung entirely in Latin and serves as a short but haunting refrain to end the album on a suitably dark note.
As a whole, Spectres from the Old World feels like a very complete album and one which flows exceptionally well. The more progressive elements that are present help keep things fresh on repeated listens and provide a nice bit of variety from what would usually be present in the genre. That being said, if you are after a super solid black metal album with stellar production and superb song writing then this will work for you. To call it just that though, would be doing it a major disservice as it is so much more than that.
Spectres from the Old World is out now. Order on Amazon to help this site!
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