The time has come for me to lay my judgement on this VOIDTHRONE record, "Kur", the second effort of the Black/Death Metal group.

To tell the truth, I enjoyed this record far more on my second listen. At first, it seemed really bland and uninspired, but after taking a closer look at it, the LP has some merits to it. One of these is the atmosphere. The band really took their time with building the tension, which shows on the tracklist. I mean, 4 tracks, 1 of which is an intro track, but with a combined length of 24 minutes. Repetition is a frequently used approach the band utilizes on this thing, with hit-or-miss results.

As for the riffs, they actually do feel like they were written with the idea that they will be repeated a whole lot of times, and that kind of conscious songwriting is a great positive. But unfortunately, that's basically it. The atmosphere is pretty cool, mostly, but other than that, there's nothing much to this album. The vocals are pretty typical (One thing I loved though was the BLUGH at 3:10 on b"Phantasm Epoch"), not much character or appeal in them, the drumming ranges from kind of acceptable and fitting, to pretty bad, due to the overuse of blast-beats, a technique really hard to pull off with taste and in a way that doesn't become borderline annoying.

Another minor plus is the production and mixing. It's all alright, doesn't add much to the quality, but it fits the music and no instrument is left out, besides the bass. You can clearly hear the vocals, guitars and drumming (if you'd even want to). I'm not saying there's no enjoyment to be had here, but I would be surprised to hear that this is an album of the year candidate for anyone. I'd say save up your money for another album that'll be released later this year. Wouldn't recommend.