Entry 053 - Satyricon - Nemesis Divina

 

I got into black metal in the late 90s. I had never heard anything like it before, and it blew my teenage mind away. A band that kept coming up time and time again was Satyricon, so eventually I picked up their latest album at the time: Nemesis Divina.

I've changed my mind several times over the years with this release. When I first heard it I fell in love with it, but over the next few years I eventually lost interest. Some of the songs just seemed directionless to me. Just a collection of random riffs thrown together over blast beats. So after about 2004 I stopped listening all together and forgot about the album.

One thing that never changed was my love for the song Dawn of a New Age. It is easily the best song that Satyricon has ever written. It has a strong focus throughout and features some of the finest drumming I've heard within the genre. The portion after the acoustic break is particularly powerful.

I found myself wanting to revisit the song in the mid 2010's. When I listened to the album it wasn't at all what I remembered. The riffs are varied and are well written. The drumming is excellent throughout and the vocals are visceral. When I look back at my earlier opinions I'm wondering what I was missing. Maybe my tastes just changed with time? Whatever the case, the album now stands as one of the best representations of pure black metal in my collection.