I really didn't expect this to be this good. I figured "oh, another vampire-obsessed black metal band." Man, was I wrong. This is an international two-man project, with one living in Romania and the drummer living in Finland (of course, the national home of black metal these days). The vocals are all over the black metal spectrum, from spoken to howled to growled, often all in the same song. This is also fairly technical stuff, especially where the drums are concerned, with thing you don't normally hear on a traditional black metal record. For instance, all the little drum rolls and fills and embellishments and the occasional slow guitar melody. It's definitely done primarily in the Finnish black metal style, full of dark, cold melody and speed, but fully capable of increasing the intensity and becoming brutal at times. The production overall is perfect, but truly shines on the vocals in particular, accenting everything the vocalist is doing with absolute clarity. I can't stress enough that this is not just another Satanic Warmaster clone, and that the black metal legions should go out and find this. It's worth the effort.
