Having been formed in 2009, SKOGEN has already just released their fourth full-length album, "I Döden". With it, this Swedish trio has unleashed a powerful and dark journey of Ambient Black Metal that takes the listener through tormented landscapes of tortured agony to grandiose and majestic vistas of overwhelming emptiness.

Starting out with "Vargher", a lulling melody played on an acoustic guitar, with keyboards providing a murkier and darker undercurrent, you are taken on the first few steps of this voyage. As the last few notes of this intro fade away, the ground gets pulled out under your feet, and you are plunged into the title track "I Döden" which is a personification of sepulchre beauty, with some of the most stunning Black Metal riffs I have heard in a long time. The clean vocals may perhaps be a bit overdone, but this is soon forgiven, especially when the gravelly vocals of "När Himlen Svartnar" start to rasp away at your soul. Perhaps the most atmospheric track on the album is "Livets Ruin"; although this can come across as slightly too lacklustre at first listen. If you allow yourself to become lost in the melodies, you come to realise that it actually does form a rather integral part of the album as a whole. The final track "Sleep" is the longest on "I Döden", being almost twice as long as the average track-length of the other songs. With the slow tempo, warped progressions, and almost reptilian chanting reminiscent of the vocals occasionally employed by Dagon of INQUISITION, this track does well in rounding off the album and bringing the listener back down from their journey.

I generally am not a huge fan of keyboards, as bands so often go overboard with them and the keyboard ends up drowning out all the other instruments. But SKOGEN have managed to avoid this beautifully, having just enough keyboard to enhance the overall atmosphere of the album, as well as to adding to overall compositional complexity, but without straying too far towards that kitsch sound that is so often synonymous with keyboards and synths. The band has also found the flawless balance in terms of the overall quality of the recording; the album is clean enough for each element to shine through perfectly, but without becoming over-polished.

If you're a fan of bands like WODENSTHRONE and AGALLOCH, then I highly recommend giving this band a listen. SKOGEN is an almost criminally underrated band, and "I Döden" is most certainly one of the better such Black Metal albums I have recently heard.

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