ARKONA, the Black Metal horde hailing fro Poland, are back this year, unleashing their sixth full-length album "Lunaris" unto the world. With a career spanning over two decades, ARKONA deliver a true punch of blasphemous proportions, with raw melodies that chafe with frost-bitten tenacity at your very soul, whilst symphonic interludes and undertows give the songs an undeniable sense of grandeur.

"Lunaris" comprises six songs with a total run-time of just over three quarters of an hour. Here grand and majestic passages counter the darker and more ravenous undercurrents, resulting in a beast that is at times captivating in its sepulchre beauty, and at other times crushing in its ferocious aggression. Frenetic tremolo work adds a furious feel, whilst an aural onslaught of blast beats give the songs a burgeoning and spit-fire tempo. This viciousness is skillfully tempered by more melodious passages woven into the soundscapes, adding a keening texture here and a olympian atmosphere there. There isn't a single song on this album that hints at being a mere filler: each song has clearly been carefully crafted. Starting off with "Droga do ocalenia", a dark melody insidiously comes creeping in, swelling and blooming into a fetid blossom reeking of decay. This soon gives way to a mid-tempo Black Metal section that can only be described as quintessential: it is exactly how you would expect decent old Black Metal to be played in the this day and age, albeit with added cinematic symphonic frills that counterbalance the darker sections. "Ziemia", by contrast, starts off slower and moodier, although this chilling and oppressive atmosphere waxes and wanes throughout the song, giving it captivating variations. "Śmierć i odrodzenie" on the other hand uses organ-like sounds to give the song a more funerary feel, which melds seamlessly into a breathtakingly epic yet hauntingly empty melody. This fades out and leads us into the frenzied tempest of "Nie dla mnie litość", a madness-tinged maelstrom of a song that really shows what ARKONA are capable of, complete with sections that wouldn't be out of place in the score of a Frankenstein movie. Penultimately we find "Lśnienie", a slightly more melancholic melody, with a spiraling depressive sound that sucks you down into a morass of despair. Finally we have the title song, "Lunaris", which carries on with this grim tone, before ebbing into a more evil and menacing feel. This in turn gives way to a more uplifting atmosphere, filled with grandeur and dare I even say hope, ending the album off on a surprising high.

In a genre where which has been so heavily stomped though that barely a trace of originality remains, it's refreshing to come across a band manages fairly successfully to play this style without sounding too cliche. The production is also well done, maintaining a balance between powerful clarity and searing rawness. This is cleverly done, managing to retain hints of that Old School Black Metal flavour, whilst still allowing ARKONA's unique sound to shine through. However, one downside of this type of production is that the bass has almost completely disappeared into the mix. Nevertheless, this is a small gripe, and the one thing that I absolutely love about this album is the excellently executed changes in tempo and atmosphere undertaken in each song. This keeps "Lunaris" captivating throughout, and helps makes this one of my most enjoyed Black Metal releases this year. ARKONA are highly recommended, not just for Black Metal fans in general, but in particular for those who are looking for a more melodic version of phenomenal bands such as MAY RESULT and KOZELJNIK.