It's the return of darkness and evil. It's the return of the tyrants of death and destruction. Obey or else you'll die. The gates of hell are open for all of us. Enter and taste the sin and the doom of this planet.
It's been seven years since the last album of NIFELHEIM, the thunderous Servants Of Darkness, although some splits and a compilation celebrating their 13 years of morbid existence our thirst for real unholy Metal was endless. I should end this review right now just saying Fuck you, go buy it now and go fuck again. I mean, what do you expect from me to write? It's their new album and this unholy blasphemous legion is a guarantee for your rotten musical tastes. The entire following has the only purpose to proclaim an interest to some of our readers that are not familiar with this name. Forget all this shit of nowadays. This is your chance to be metalheads and discover what this music is about.
The sound of these demonized Sweds could be described as evil Thrash with Death influences as it was in the middle of the 80s. From POSSESSED to POISON of Germany, from SARCOFAGO, VULCANO and MERCYFUL FATE to VENOM, DARKNESS, RAZOR, EXCITER, TANK, WARFARE and any other glorious names you can remember from these eras. There is an air of Satan inside, pure evil, smelling terrible disgusting, like swimming in a sea of shit or taking inverted crosses and place them in rotten pussies of nuns that suffer from hemorrhoids that releases pools of blood in the ground. NIFELHEIM's music is also very influenced by IRON MAIDEN, especially in the leads, and it's easy for an experienced ear to discover many references from bands of the East block like ARIA, KORROZIA METALLA, TORMENTOR, TURBO and others; it's a little boring to write a catalogue here. To fulfill the whole description the other name that completes the puzzle is Japanese masters SABBAT. In many of NIFELHEIM's leads are obvious these unholy disharmonies that I can say is trademark of SABBAT, making me believe that they spend a lot of time listening to their records.
The other ultra positive thing with this band is the sound of their CDs, which is pure analogue differing from the whole plastic scene and being more persuasive; more Metal; and more evil. The passion and the ballcrushing rage that you will find here exposures from real metalheads full into this sound, doing what they are doing first of all for the satisfaction of their personal Metal needs. This 'without reconciliation' music - except the underground aura that physically emits to the listener - accomplishes our Metal fantasies ransoming us in these dark Metal days we are living, making me feel that their albums could be placed besides the jewels of the 80s easily.
All of the ten songs here are perfect, the leads of Infernal Flame Of Destruction are evil, the headbanging is endless in Evocation Of The End, vocals coming from graves full of zombies in Open The Gates Of Damnation, a Metal hymn close to WITCHERY's first album Storm Of The Reaper and the last song beginning with a 'diabolus-in-musica' and then transforming into a tribute to No More Lies of IRON MAIDEN.
After Quorthon's death, NIFELHEIM is the best Swedish band right now. I'm not going to compare Envoy Of Lucifer with the previous ones; each of them has its own personality and Metal lust and all are perfect.