Black Metal

Titled Outojen Tornien Varjoissa, FAUSTIAN PACT’s full-length debut is the grand culmination of all the gloriously bewitching work they brewed across that trio of demos. Exploding with an effervescence that’s addicting and undeniable, their swords-aloft attack surges and swells, crests and cascades. At the forefront are stained-glass synths whisked from a time – and a fantastical landscape – far, FAR away, sumptuously underlining their heroic/romantic style of black metal deeply steeped in a nostalgic past. Across the album’s 41 minute (fantastical) landscape are spread lyrics of splendorous mythology, swords & sorcery, vast forgotten realms brought to life through wily, wanderlusting black metal betraying a noble melodicism. FAUSTIAN PACT are thus a unique balance of contrasts: orkish energy vs. mystical atmosphere, dungeon rawness vs. castle-top aristocracy, obsidian darkness vs. gleaming light. So, whether 25 years ago or 2500, removed by a reality or two, Outojen Tornien Varjoissa is timeless BLACK METAL MAGICK – dark medieval times have at last arrived!

Black Metal

“Ruumissaarna Pt. 1 is about the darker side of Finnish man’s nature,” explains founding guitarist/bassist Valgrinder. “It tries to find and understand the reasons which make ordinary man a beast, a killer, when opportunity and circumstances are right – when things move in a certain direction slowly but surely, until it reaches the point where there’s no turning back anymore. It’s about our inner demon – The Perkele – who is living inside us and just waiting to get the opportunity to take over. And of course, it’s also about those innocent ones who have to take the consequences. Ruumissaarna isn’t fantasy nor fiction; it’s the everyday darkness we want to deny. It’s the darker side of Finnish culture and our nature.”

Black Metal

“Perkeleen Weri is an album which is dedicated to glory days of black metal, when things were pure and albums were built more on guitar riffs and not just atmosphere, when songs themselves weren’t hidden behind hellish tempos or under huge production. Perkeleen Weri is a pure, naked, and shameless album, for both good and bad – nothing more, nothing less.”

Black Metal

These are earliest recordings of Förgjord that has any value. “Tie, Totuus & Kuolema” was our first official demo, but lack of connections, it wasnt spread widely. Note that these are the original recordings from that session, not re-worked versions from “Henkeen ja Vereen”.

Black Metal

Both triumphant and melancholic, violent and resigned, hysteric and finessed, Queen of Frost brazenly displayed the full swathe of FUNERAL FROST’s considerable arsenal. With a raw-yet-robust soundfield neither dampening nor exaggerating any of their dynamics, here did the Swedish trio spelunk in dungeons and raze battlefields alike, their screaming-into-the-nightsky sound surprisingly medieval and moody. Likewise, compared to so many of their blastbeating-all-the-time contemporaries, FUNERAL FROST shifted speeds often and never lingered too long in one, with the drums in particular ringing with authentically analog clarity. Add to this a subtle daubing of synths and Queen of Frost stands as a crucial tome for those into classic Arckanum, Kvist, Sorhin, and Norway’s Perished.

Black Metal

In 2017, GOATMOON truly etched its name its Finnish black metal legendry with Stella Polaris, a monument of cosmic, snow-capped majesty. The entirely dungeon synth Silver Serpent followed in 2021, but now arrives GOATMOON’s full-length return to black metal with What Once Was… Shall Be Again. As presaged by its title, there’s an undeniably yearning and nostalgic aspect to the band’s characteristically epic ruminations, occasionally/often dusted by folkloric synths. But if one were to assume that What Once Was… Shall Be Again would further continue that refinement – and indeed, in large part, it does – the album equally takes GOATMOON back to their earliest, rawest roots, here temped by the steely-eyed austerity of older age and wisdom. It’s a skillful balance pulled off with aplomb, proving that the band honor their history but rarely repeat themselves. And more than anything, it provides another dazzling new canvas on which warriors and dreamers can explore…but no safe spaces here, of course. No other words necessary: What Once Was… Shall Be Again!