Style: Atmospheric black metal
Primary Emotions/Themes: Absolute power, crushing my enemies below my boot
Thoughts: Thunder clashes in the distance. The church bell rings to chime in the mournful tones of those who have been crushed before me. A time of mourning has arrived.
Aeternus is a special band... or rather was a special band. Their early days are completely unmatched. They were completely unique. No other band sounded like them at the time and no other band has matched this sound since... not even Aeternus.
Dark Sorcery is the last missing piece of the glory days. The debut EP from this legendary band. Four songs, four more entries to some of the best black metal ever recorded. It's short, it's potent and it's nearly perfect.
Aeternus' sound takes quite a few nods from death metal without ever going into death metal territory. The riffs are heavy (for black metal), the vocals are deep and profound. A lot of the riffs are slower and brooding... but it's not death metal. It never was. This isn't even blackened death metal... it's just black metal played at a lower register and lower speed.
That said the band knows absolutely when to speed the fuck up. The blasting sections of Dark Sorcery are a clear highlight. This is the closest that the band ever sounds to their peers, yet even here there is a depth to both the riffs and vocals that were unseen in the scene... and remain so nearly thirty years later.
Four songs, each portraying a different side of the band. Black Dust is the band's core sound, slowly evolving heavy chords with an acoustic backing. Victory shows the band blasting away with the best of the scene. Raven and Blood is a mixture of the two above songs and Nordlys is an acoustic outro. Everything that the band was to become is covered here.
Dark Sorcery is one hell of a debut, and needs more recognition. This is some of the finest black metal ever recorded, and I'm glad it finally got repressed. Even though its only 20 minutes long the effects of the music are felt long after. It's the perfect length for one side of an LP, and makes for easy repeated listens. Now if you'll excuse me I need to do just that.
Written May 1st 2024
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