Profane Elegy play thoughtful and heavy black metal with no melodic pretense, just controlled brutality and haunting atmosphere. Here and there the brand breaks out acoustic or clean guitars and wonderful clean vocals for truly atmospheric moments, but these are mere interludes. The vocals are screamed in a fairly standard black metal style, full of scorn and evil intent. I'm pressed with the violence of the singer's style, however, and he's absolute vicious. He can really hold a scream. The guitar solos, where present, remind me of Emperor in tone and style. They frequently use thrashing riffs and beats, and it serves to intensify the music a great deal. The drums have that wet sound I like to hear, as well. This is a bit of a disjointed review, being flow-of-consciousness, but that's what this album reduced me to. It was good enough that I was paying attention to the music instead of my sentences. We rarely get American black metal this good.