Just like his self-titled debut, the second ABBATH release sounds mostly like (surprise, surprise!) IMMORTAL. Having said that – a desire to move things forward into a more intriguing musical territory is indeed evident. And even though ‘Calm in Ire (Of Hurricane)’, ‘Land of Khem’ and ‘Harvest Pyre’ would effortlessly fit in most post ’99 IMMORTAL releases, ‘Bridge of Spasms’, ‘Hecate’ and ‘Outstrider’ display a more progressive, thrash and atmospheric edge to his music, thumbs up!

Though following closely in the oldschool metal steps of 2006’s ‘The Cult is Alive’, ‘Old Star’ is notably better than most albums the band has released in the past decade. Tighter sounding and bringing riff after riff after riff of heavy/thrash savagery, it is evident that DARKRTHONE are now back to a darker, more sinister path. And even though these are tracks heavily influenced by traditional metal, ‘Old Star’ is mostly unconventional and surprising – don’t trust us, trust ‘Alp Man’ and ‘The Hardship of the Scots’ instead.

 

GAAHL was never into straightforward black metal (apart from his famous but uninspiring collaboration with GORGOROTH). Thus, it comes as little surprise that ‘GastiR’ is by far the most leftfield, awkward and downright enjoyable album we’ve come across in months. Though different from the works of other GAAHL dominated projects TRELLDOM and GOD SEED, GAAHLS WYRD is a similarly genre-fluid mish-mash of speedy black, psychedelic rock, unorthodox thrash plus some quirky clean vocals, ritualistic chants, harsh screeches and other unsettlingly great stuff.