Style: symphonic black metal
Primary Emotions/Themes: Keyboard driven black metal that pays tribute to the second wave
Thoughts: Everything about this album screams old school. The cover resembles the best works of Necrolord. The music is drenched in reverb and layer upon layer of keybaords. The vocals even have the same distance to them that a lot of the early second wave albums do. The riffs are simple minor key variants yet they work so incredibly well. It's the whole package.
If this album was paying tribute to anything it would be early Emperor, specifically In the Nightside Eclipse. Many of these tracks sound like they could have been lifted straight off of there. V-KhaoZ's vocals even sound a bit like Ihsahn during that time period. For all intents and purposes Reign in Supreme Darkness is a tribute album to Nightisde.
With that many similarities, it's easy to cast this aside as a knock off project. I don't think that's the case here. V-KhaoZ has enough projects going that I know this is all intentional. The song writing here is top notch, and while not the most creative they fill a void that not many modern bands can. A perfect album for when I want a modern take on the 90's black metal style.
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