Vying for the championship of longest album title ever are Bal-Sagoth with their new entry. This viking metal album contains epic after epic, complete with song titles even longer than the album title. Previously Bal-Sagoth consisted of a large amount of keyboard work, but this is now more prevalent than ever before. In fact, in places the keyboards are the driving force to the music. Normally I would consider this to be a negative aspect, but in this case the classically influenced keyboards add a very gothic feel to the music. A very positive trait of Bal-Sagoth is the excellent guitar work! In a flash the guitar pace will go from hyper speed to drawn out back to hyper speed. In fact, time changes are pulled off flawlessly throughout the album, never sounding contrived or forced in any way. The drumming is equally impressive, as the double bass adds power to the songs. Singer Byron's vocals are another positive feature. He performs both a black metal style and a depp, dark spoken style of vocals qually well. The lyrical content consists of various poetic sagas and tales of war and destruction, dark times, heroism and other related themes. However, good luck trying to follow along with the lyrics during a song, as Byron constantly jumps from place to place performing his vocal duties. Worth mentioning are the intro and outro tracks, which have a very classical quality to them, dark and brooding, perfect to open and close the album. My only complaint toward this album would be the shear complexity of the music in places, where guitars and keyboards are being played full tilt and Byron's shrieking like a Banshee can become somewhat overwhelming, as too much is taking place at once. But this minor complaint aside, this is a very worthwhile album of top quality; excellent production, intersting cover art, an insert the size of a book, and captivating songs from start to finish.
Bal-Sagoth is:
Byron - Vocals
Jonny Maudling - Drums (and all studio keyboards)
Chris Maudling - Guitar (and all studio bass)
Jason Porter - Bass
Leon Forrest - Keyboards
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