In the name of the flame.
As if this band originated in Scandinavia in the middle of the 1990s. But we thought wrong: UNHALLOWED comes from our region and has the first full-length disc with “Awaken The Black Flame” at the start, but has absorbed the melodic, deadly Black Sweden steel with its mother’s milk. There are all sorts of musical parallels to NAGLFAR, DISSECTION, LORD BELIAL and DARK FUNERAL, but they can also share a bed with DARK FORTRESS, THULCANDRA and BLACK HORIZONS if the way north should be too far. Long story short: If you like Melodic Black’n’Death Metal, you’ll definitely find what you’re looking for on “Awaken The Black Flame”.
And although the boys have only been together since 2021, the debut is a well-rounded, coherent affair: the aggressively forward-rushing gloomy steel is interspersed with jangly cold melodies, an avalanche-like force of snow and frosty vocals that go through marrow and bone, there wreak havoc and, together with the powerful sound, let the blood freeze in your veins for 37 minutes. Check out ‘We Shall Reap’ or the intense ‘Black-Winged Lord’, because from the beginning of the title track it’s above all this dense, ominous aura that represents the salt in this conceptual-Scandinavian-factual-German primordial soup. I still get chills down my spine.
And while “Awaken The Black Flame” doesn’t rumble to the front in a dull and uninspired manner, the thing is evil across the board. It’s more this subliminal, nasty grimace, which only shows itself after the second or third round and is the real attraction of this thoroughly great debut. And this is how the deeper meaning of the black flame is revealed: On the one hand, it expresses a certain warmth because of its sound and melodic outpourings, but it is originally pitch black, evil to the core, breathed death in before it woke up and is now waiting just to light up your living rooms too.
UNHALLOWED definitely has to be on the screen, I’m all the happier that alongside all the big and bigger scene releases and bands, newcomers also manage to really grab me.
- Note:
- 8.00
- Editor:
- Marcel Rapp
