Style: Black metal
Primary Emotions/Themes: The cold of winter
Thoughts: Immortal has always been a band that evolves their sound slightly from one album to the next. A small change in pacing, a change in the way that the songs are written, or even just a tweak in the production. With Battles in the North however, for the one time in their career they stagnated for an album.
Battles in the North is the little brother to Pure Holocaust in nearly every way. The blistering pace of the second album is there, just not as ferocious. The sense of cold and bitterness is there as well... but again it's not as well developed or as demanding of my attention as the second album is. It truly feels like Pure Holocaust part 2 in every way.
There are slight differences here and there. For one the production is a bit more muted than the previous album. While this in and of itself is a neutral thing, I feel like the album could have benefited from a tiny bit clearer production. There is a LOT going on with the riffs, and sometimes the guitars get lost in the murky production.
Battles in the North is by no means a bad album. In fact it's one of my favorite 90's black metal albums. Abbath and Demonaz created an incredibly challenging and blistering work that is one of the defining albums of the genre. That said, given the choice of listening to this vs. the second album, Pure Holocaust will hit the turntable nearly every time.
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