Entry 035 - Dissection - Storm of the Lights Bane

 

These past few weeks have truly been an embarrassment of riches when it comes to the records I've been able to acquire. Dissections second album marks another one that I never thought I would add to my collection - yet here we are.

Storm of the Lights Bane (is that a fantastic album title or what?) is a near perfect marriage of melodic black and death metal. The songs are long, almost all longer than 6 minutes. Each of the full length songs show a maturity to the song writing that many bands strive to reach yet few ever even come close.

The only instrumentation used here is two guitars, one bass, drums and vocals - yet the end result feels like so much more. Each song on the album feels more like a journey through different melodies, styles, and tempos.

Nights Blood for example starts with one of the strongest riffs ever written in metal (yes you heard me) then transitions into the first section of the song. The song will ultimately end up going through several tempo shifts and an acoustic section before finally revisiting that inedible riff.

Most songs follow the classic ABA structure, in that they start and finish in a similar way with a middle section separating the "A" sections. This style works incredibly well for Dissection. These riffs were written with this longer song structure in mind - and it shows.

Storm of the Lights Bane goes down as Dissection's finest album, and one of the highlights of the young extreme metal scene of the 90's.