ANIMA MORTE are a four piece Swedish progressive rock band - Born of Fredrik Klingwall's mind in 2004 in the purpose to recreate the magic he had heard in the music of famous Italian horror movies by writer Dario Argento. Later - in 2005 - the project was jump started with adding of multi-instrumentalist Stefan Granberg. During the years the band continued to form up and released several albums such as the 2007 release "Face The Sea Of Darkness" and the 2011 release "The Nightmare Becomes Reality".

The album opens with the eery "Blessing Of The Dead", Keyboard and bells are joined by strings into a creepy vibe that keeps increasing and growing bigger - drones, loud hums and various ominous sounds finish the song while making your skin crawl. "Illusion Is The Catalyst" starts a direction that I liked very much in this album - Synthesizers take the lead and joined by the entire band they lead the song into a seventies prog rock kind of mood. The song continues into an acoustic guitar led part that also has the heavily distorted guitars give back the creepy, skin crawling harmonies.

"The Carrion Crow" features a bluesy rhythmic tone of bass and guitars to be enforced by keyboards to give a eery underline to the mix, the ball tumbles and rolls into a progressive rock parade, growing bigger and bigger into epic proportions. Some tasty leads give many flavors to the song. The song suddenly comes back to the drones and the ominous voices and sounds  until it dies down quietly.

The melancholic "Halls Of Death" starts with arpeggiating guitars, joined by atmospheric bells and cymbals into more strings and drums to transition into a big prog-y tone. More and more strings join the mix along with a bouzouki and flutes. The song slows down into a more atmospheric, yet sinister melody led by bells and enforced by gentle wind instruments and strings.

"Upon Darkened Stains" is haunting - yet intriguing. Gentle and precise - yet full of energy and character. ANIMA MORTE have created a fantastic combination of seventies progressive rock with horrifying and creepy tones and vibe - bound to captivate its listeners with every track.