ALBUM REVIEW: Svartidauði – Revelations Of The Red Sword

Here I review the long awaited new album of Icelandic Black Metallers Svartidaudi! This album is set to be unleashed on the 3rd December via Ván Records!

1. Sol Ascending opens with guitars as cold and scathing as the country the band hail from, beautifully filled drums add spacious assault to the mix with everything coming together into a huge and cascading attack, filled with gruesome dissonance and just so much menacing ferocity. The vocals layering perfectly and manifesting within the song with such beauty and elegant grace, this album is immediately promising of some of the best Black Metal to hear. The unrelenting, tormented vibes of the song just send chills down my spine through every single second, the harrowing chanted sections adding more complexity, furthering the grisly discordance of the atmosphere. The lead guitars soar with such gorgeous tones, really elevating everything nicely without drawing away from the momentous atmospherics. An utterly frozen monolith of music, opening the album with total style! Sheer perfection.
2. Burning Worlds of Excrement follows up with burning tones, perfectly apt to the title. I am relatively familiar with this song that was released as a single thus I have played it a few times prior to beginning this review… Anyway, the whole instrumental sections cascade much like in the previous track with huge walls of guitar noise, hellish vocals and incredibly intense drums. The more aggressive vibe of this song is no less atmospheric but far more unsettling to me. Once more the icy blaze of music is perfectly orchestrated with such precision and captured perfectly by the tight yet vacuous production. There are some really hollow tones that grate in a really awesome way against your ears, the music really trying to push things way outside of the comfort zones set by most Black Metal bands. Another really epic song that is totally haunting!
3. The Howling Cynocephali comes in with forceful grooves and more of a hideous grind to things, adding a new dimension to the already versatile album. The barrage of sonic horror that hit you, do so with such ferocity and excellence, an astounding and vibrant soundscape that is truly unforgiving! The depressive tinges of the song really hit hard and there is such a tight claustrophobic feeling to the actual structure and songwriting, something the band have had few rivals at making so effectively. The despairing vocals and guitars match perfectly with some killer drums to make something filled with emotional intensity and clearly was incredibly cathartic to make. Wonderful!
4. Wolves of a Red Sun opens with groove and a much more melodic feel to it. The untouched skilfulness of the band really shows in the musical complexity of this piece that is much more laid back to begin with but equally stunning to behold and witness. The crawling instrumentals really eat away at you in a remarkable manner, excellent! Unwavering and versatile, this song is a slow burn and morbid journey into the band themselves. Utterly mesmerising and to me, perfectly executed. The blistering assaults do rejoin us in due course, as expected with punishing dissonance utilised again, the sheer intensity is unsettling but coupled with the discordant songwriting, really hits hard with full menace. An absolutely killer track and for me this is the most complexly brilliant, also best Svartidaudi song to date!
5. Reveries of Conflagration creeps in, with eerie guitars and drums that build, grow and deform as you listen, utterly hypnotising and terrifying at the same time. This is some incredibly skilled and complex musicianship used to create something beautifully hideous and grotesque, which I mean of course in the best possible way!  The howling vocals add a churning edge to the music with everything falling into chaotic yet organised madness that just perfectly impacts on you in all the right ways. This is by far some of the most intellectually thought out Black Metal with a very esoteric and fantastic approach to it. I really liked some of the stranger drums fills that really were horrifically blasting away throughout the ending sections, great stuff. Entirely brilliant song, once more adding tons of diversity and variation to the already huge album! A truly introspective piece for the band, or at least to my ear, that really feels like it is something personal.
6. Aureum Lux is the finale of this grandiose opus of Black Metal, something I am very intrigued to see how they pull off. The funeral march vibe of the start immediately sets a sombre mood, filled with brooding contempt and a vitriolic rage that you can feel creeping towards you. The bleak guitars and intricate cymbal use really emphasise this effect to its full potential. The melodic yet nail biting leads really add some confusion, while they are stunning they also seem to contend with the rest of the song, which actually has a really cool effect, thus I believe this to be intentional. This is certainly something Svartidaudi have been known for anyway. The barrage of gnarly riffs, drums and just excellent musicianship gives us one last, although fairly long, round of utterly mesmerising Black Metal. There are plenty of unexpected twists in the song (which I shall not spoil) that really caught me off guard and lets the thing grow as one beastly and monolithic piece of art, an excellent conclusion to the brilliance of the album. I am left astounded and stunned.

Be ready for some of the most decimating, crystalline assaults of Black Metal perfection, this album is a must listen for any fan of the genre. Filled with dissonance and atmospherics that just do not waver or weaken at any point. Utterly glorious! -9/10