Artist: 1349
Country: Norway
Label: Candlelight Records
Formats: LP / CD
Year: 2009
The last few releases of the Norwegians of 1349 have been surrounded by a minor hype, and in particular for their last record ‘Hellfire’ that seemed to be justified. Not resting on their laurels, the band has set different goals for their follow-up, ‘Revelations of the Black Flame’.
The change of direction is immense, taking away pretty much all the rage of the previous albums in favor of a more mid paced old school approach, alternated with a shitload of ambient samples. In theory this could be a powerful combination, but often the ambient tracks lack any added value, as is the case on this album. Most of them are nothing more than vague echoes, some stray guitar notes and a dash of percussion. The one positive exception is the piano-driven dark track ‘Misanthropy’, which then lacks a proper transition into the following song, in my opinion an essential requirement if you want to add ambient tracks to an album. It almost seems as if the band went for a more musical version of SunnO))) at times, but in reality they stay lightyears away from their brilliant droning. Some good “regular” tracks could have saved the day, but the four contributions on the album seem lackluster and venomless, with a horrible plastic drum sound surfacing whenever the band sporadically opts for a faster approach. Allright, ‘Maggot Fetus… Teeth Like Thorns’ is pretty good, but nothing as good as for instance Urgehal. Anyway, some may hear old school Black Metal with ambient influences, I’m leaning more towards hearing a disjointed mid paced album broken up by irrelevant intermezzos. I don’t think too many of the ‘Hellfire’ and before fans will get excited about this.
