IRRLYCHT create a dark, brooding and ferocious Black Metal driven by, as the purest form of Black Metal usually is, hate. Revelling in all the hallmarks of BM, from their aesthetic, their indecipherable logo and black and white album covers, IRRLYCHT represent the section of the genre unmuddied by blending of musical styles or trying to be something they're not, at their roots, the band is made of up five Black Metal fans, making Black Metal, for other Black Metal fans, and the result is a delectably heavy delve into all the things that make the genre great.

At an hour and six minutes long, this album is quite the behemoth, its longest track standing at an impressive seventeen minutes long. Track One, "Belebung Ymirs," begins with a delightful crescendo of strings, just before a vicious animalistic snarl breaks down any form of sweet atmosphere that is created. The growl leads the way for the tremolo guitars and the raw, naturalistic drums. The tones are dark and slot in perfectly with the aggressive, gargled vocals. Soon the guitars take a much higher pitched tone, the tremolo continuing but with melodies overlaid, and the drums descend into straight blast beats and it feels like a classic BM album.  At the midpoint of the song, the drums drop out and the near silence is deafening, a steady tom build up and spoken word vocals prefaces a breakdown of a slow, Doomy and very heavy section. The pace picks back up and phrases of spoken word pepper themselves in through the growling and blast beats, reminding me of the first DIMMU BORGIR album FOR ALL TID.

Haunting church bells kick off "Drohende Schatten," and a simplistic drum beat combined with a steady guitar riff establishes the rest of the song. Grandiose vocals enter as the kick drum begins a steady 16^th note pace to propel the song forwards. The vocals have a whimsical nature that is only added to by the contrast of the growling screams that follow. You have to admire the drummer's stamina as the bass drum pattern is maintained for almost all ten minutes of the song, a constant that is surrounded by ever changing hand patterns, moving across the cymbals and consistent pace changes on the snare to fit the guitar movements.

The title track, "Wolfish Grandeur," calls back to the opening song with its animalistic snarls, before, once again, hitting the listener with a barrage of blasts and tremolo. The song features sections of hymnal, heavenly vocals, in which the drums go through modulation, slowing down the snare whilst retaining the pace of the bass drum, loading these sections with feeling and groove. The guitars enter a state of high-pitched bliss as the drums enter an odd time groove to highlight every hit of the riff, all before Isegrimm delivers his most intense, ferocious and animalistic vocal section of the album, descending the listener to the deepest layer of Black Metal hell.

This is a classic Black Metal album through and through, IRRLYCHT don't stray from their comfort zone and the result is a refined, well produced and fantastical sounding product. The perfect mix of emotion, pacing and composition that lends itself to feeling as similar as it does exciting. If pure Black Metal and all its brilliance, aggression and simplistic yet grandiose sound is what you're after, you'll be hard pressed to find a better example than this released within the last year.