It's the year of their Lord, 1349. Wonderful and interesting things are happening throughout Europe, in the form of the Black Death. People are being incinerated alive, believed to be the bearers of Satan's curse and an English ship arrives at Bergen with everyone dead on board, bringing the Black Death to Norway. Now what's more brutal or metal than that?
Unfortunately the Norwegian band named after this year, is not as cool as the events happening during that time. The album cover of Revelations Of The Black Flame and the titles alone are more than promising. The screams at the beginning are even more promising for a brutal assault in our sensations but that's about it. Invocation and Serpentine Sibilance are decent tracks and my hopes were high up to this point for some quality Norse black. Alas, Horns failed me hard and reminded me of the latest 'entire track with ambient sounds for a background going on forever' trend in Black Metal. People! It works for David Lynch films but it fails hard for a black metal album, get that through your skulls and stop doing that!
Maggot Fetus...Teeth Like Thorns stands out in this album. It's short, it's brutal, it's black. Hopefully its what 1349 are really capable of. Misanthropy though was the next slope in this rollercoaster and I have to admit it only went downhill from that point on with an exception of Uncreation which was more than decent. The next 3 songs, Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun, Solitude and At The Gates... are mostly ambient sounds with some random guitars and vocals thrown in. I have to point out that my subwoofer went nuts during these songs in the ambient parts. Production is a bit below average and definitely nothing to write home about.
It might be an interesting and different approach to Black Metal for some, if they are open minded enough; not the right kind of open minded that includes a shotgun or a chainsaw but the kind that you have to be willing to accept minimum growls, grunts, blastbeats, chants, insane guitars and drumming, but lots of ambient sound, in many cases being the dominant feature. I guess I just wasn't up for that.