Style: Melodic black metal
Primary Emotions/Themes: regicide, the destruction of authority
Thoughts: Runespell. Likely the best black metal band I've found in the past five years. Certainly the best melodic band I've found in metal in that time frame. The way that these melodies cut through the air combined with the blasting and unmatched atmosphere is what drives this project from good to elite.
The first time I heard Verses in Regicide I knew that it was very much a continuation of the previous album. A huge amount of acoustic work mixed with the excellent melodic black metal with some minor tweaks from the Voice of Opprobrium: the songs are shorter and the album is more diverse than the previous opus.
For the most part nothing has changed outside of those two minor details. The album still blasts away at full speed while the melodies guide the music through all sorts of peaks and valleys. The acoustic guitar provides a great contrast to the constant battering of the metal and the vocals wrap everything together nicely with a raw reverb filled production. This is still very much Runespell.
What does differ though is the song order. It's not acoustic followed by metal followed by acoustic wash and repeat. The album flows a bit better, the acoustic sections are spread across the tracks less evenly, providing a bit more variety than previous entries into the Runespell discography. Nothing much has changed to the formula, rather it has been fine tuned to fit the music better.
Runespell remains one of my favorite modern black metal bands. I love how they seem to get better with every album yet never forget the sound that brought them to where they are. They are a testament to how black metal can still be engaging and interesting without resorting to gimmicks.
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