Style: Black metal
Primary Emotions/Themes: The cold of winter seeps into my very being
Thoughts: After Immortal's big shift on At the Heart of Winter I wondered if they would ever explore the more chaotic side of their early albums again. Damned in Black gave me little hope that they would ever explore that earlier style again... but then I heard One by One - the opener for Sons of Northern Darkness and I was intrigued.
You see, One by One continues the clean production that the band started with in At the Heart of Winter, but it has that insane chaotic technicality to the riffs that the band showed on Blizzard Beasts. The stacatto riffing with the furious blasting from Horgh... god damn, they were back. At least for one song.
Of course not the entire song is the chaotic insanity that is Blizzard Beasts, but it does contain parts. The later half of the song goes more in the melodic direction, but for those glorious first few minutes of the song the band shows that they can still write the good shit.
This continues straight into the title track. That opening riff is catchy as hell but still has that chaotic edge to it that the band has been missing. This is again seen in Within the Dark Mind. The first half is more melodic, but then they start blasting around the five minute mark and that hint of chaos comes back in. Great stuff.
In many ways it feels like Sons of Northern Darkness is the celebration of their entire career. For many years this was the last album that Immortal produced, and I thought it was a fitting end to their discography. Of their more melodic side, this is easily the best album they produced in that style.
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