Thrawsunblat
Metachthonia

Good looking artwork, was my first thought when I started work with this album from Canadian band Thrawsunblat. Their logo is not as great, but the sound has some interesting touches. “Metachthonia is ancient Greek for "the age after that of the Earth," referring to today's modern world. The saturdation of electricity and industry has created a time where we find ourselves under fluorescent light more often than sunlight, and so yearn for the natural world” is how the press info describes the meaning of the title, the album itself is a conceptual album telling its story in six very long tracks.

The band call themselves folkened black metal and that isn’t a bad description, it is black metal with some folkish touches. We get all the black metal stuff with the hoarse vocals, the aggressive stuff and all of that. But we also get some more melodic stuff, some dark open starlit landscapes and it has a cold northern feel to it. It is kind of a dark album, almost like they see everything in black. The sound is good and the album is fairly varied even though I would say that an hour playing time is a tad on the long side.

It is an interesting and a good album, perhaps not so good that I want to buy the vinyl record but good nevertheless. Fans of folkish black metal should definitely look at this album. I think though that it is a bit uneven throughout the album, making it feel a bit less good. The vocals could certainly have been much better, they are okay for the most part but there are parts where I think the vocals really ruin the listening experience.

In the end though I think that this is a pretty decent album, it has many things going for it, like a nice vinyl release to name just one. And it also have some really good music, Thrawsunblat certainly gives us stuff to like with this album. If they had just given us a little more to like and a little less to dislike, this would have been a really strong album – not to worry though, it is still pretty good.

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