Balfor
Black Serpent Rising

Funeral Fire from Ukraine lets the black serpent rise towards the dark wintery skies. Their cover is pretty decent looking with the serpent on it, and looking at the cover and the titles it is pretty clear what kind of music we are dealing with. Barbaric black metal is how the promo people describe the music we get and why not?

It is powerful dark metal with aggressive vocal and plenty of heaviness. But it is not just heavy; it has pretty much depth and melody that adds a little to the music. The production is good, it is not just power but they also give space to structure and melody. The vocals are a bit so-so however and they could be more varied and have a bit more depth, it would have added more to the whole picture of this album – which isn’t a bad picture in my opinion.

It is a good album, it has things to enjoy and I especially think that it begins really well; I also like the heaviness it offers. It is a likeable black metal album. But it is not a standout album though; there are more albums than Balfor that offers strong black metal of this character, especially some Norwegian bands. And on the subject of the Norse, I think these guys sounds pretty much like a Norwegian band which pretty much takes away the curiosity of them being from a more unusual nation.

In the end I think that this is a rather good album. But I don’t think the funeral fire burns strong enough and that the serpent isn’t really rising high enough for the album to stand out amongst the strong Norwegians and all other competition.

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