Since the outbreak of Black Metal on the 90s, we have basically four ways of making this style. The first is the old school way, like VENOM, BATHORY, and HELLHAMMER having elements from death metal and hardcore in evidence. The second is the way MAYHEM, BURZUM, SATYRICON, and DARKTHRONE, where the Black Metal sound is really characterized, with darkened atmospheres, but in a raw way. The third path leads to bands like MARDUK, earlier IMMORTAL and those bands where the music is focused in a fast and brutal insight. The fourth path is the one from bands with a more elaborated and melodic way of playing, like EMPEROR, DIMMU BORGIR, and others. And it's on the fourth path that the Italian trio COLD RAVEN is, appearing to us for the first time with their first album, "Equilibrium And Chaos".

To be honest, they do a hybrid between a melodic music with a brutal grasp in the way that MARDUK did some works, using no keyboards to fill the album with orchestrations. No, here is only high pitch vocals (in the harsher way you can find, but using some whispers and guttural grunts, reminding a bit the way Shagrath and Ihsahn use to sing), excellent guitar works (filling all the musical spaces with great riffs and some harmonic solos, and making the job of keyboards to create some great melodic moments), and pretty good rhythmic kitchen, giving them a great diversity of tempos (don't ask me who played bass and drums on the album, but the ones who did it made a fine job). It's excellent and have personality, just that.

The sound quality is very good, and to some black metal bands, could be dangerous. But with COLD RAVEN, it is the right way to do it. Their music demands a better quality to be heard and understood fully, so there will be no problem with it here.

"In Worship With My Inner Darkness" with its darkened atmosphere and perfect guitars and great vocals' presence (this song is rich in voice tunes), the hazardous with half paced tempos "Equilibrium And Chaos" (really great drums and guitars, indeed), and the more aggressive "Eons Of False Prophets" (it's a brutal song, with a strong impact created by the vocals and the rhythmic kitchen) can be named as the best ones, but the entire album is good.