Finnish black metal legend Satanic Warmaster returns with their latest full length release, Aamongandr a textbook foray into the bowels of black metal its self. What you see is what you get here, pure black metal done in the style of old with a touch of symphonic melodies to give this powerful album a beautiful splash of audial color. After a long eight year wait and a sudden drop towards the end of 2022, this album came as some what of a surprise but a good one none the less.
There’s no playing around when you start this album. Immediately you’re greeted with furious blast beats, harsh yet melodic guitars with wicked vocals provided by Werwolf. To put it as simply as possible, this is what you’ll expect through out the album. Nothing that strays to far from the black metal formula, but Werwolf at this point has truly mastered the genre being in the scene for so many years with Satanic Warmaster and other bands, there’s no doubting that he knows what he’s putting out. Certainly none of it is boring or something you’ve heard before. Its unique, fresh, yet still following the old order of black metal. Once I heard the last track ‘Barbas X Aamon’ I knew he had hit every black metal nail on its head with a change up into a slower more mid-paced track compared to the rest of the album. Couple that with some very solid production, clean yet raw sounding, and you have the perfect black metal package all in one album here.
This album almost feels like a response to the black metal scene over the past three years, where many artists are trying to erase the foundations of genre its self and what made the sound what it is today. There’s no denying the influence the bands from the 90s have had on not only Satanic Warmaster but the genre as a whole and Werwolf shows just that by producing this album in a way that harkens back to those days where the genre was a lot more ‘pure’. Makes sense given that many of the promos for this album are pointing out just how ‘trve’ it really is, and it certainly is that.
If you like black metal, you’re gonna like this album. Its as simple as that. Satanic Warmaster put out yet another solid release in their line up that doesn’t rock the boat drastically and was dropped in a way that shows that Werwolf wants to let the music speaks for its self and it truly does.