The Recent Foresight is the second album for this Black Metal band from Germany. To tell you the truth, I didn't know anything about this band, before this promo fell in my hands. So now it's time for me, and probably most of you, to find out about the band and its latest release.

The band is already six years old, since Aggreash was the founder (as a solo project) in 2002. As I read in the band's bio, their first demo, Beyond The Frontiers Of Mortality, had good reviews and LYFTHRASYR started creating a good name in the underworld scene. In 2004 the lineup was completed and, after several live performances, they hit the studio to record their first full-length album, The Final Resurrection. With this release, they attracted the attention of some record companies and singed to Twilight. Two years later, it was time to start recording their second album, The Recent Foresight, which was released a few months ago.

The love that Aggreash has for bands like DIMMU BORGIR and CRADLE OF FILTH is noticed from the first track. As anyone can understand, the band plays melodic Black Metal. The compositions have some good ideas. The album is filed with changes in speed, double bass, piano sounds, numerous breaks and screams accompanied by symphonic black elements, everything a fan of this particular scene is looking for. The sound may look like Swedish-style melo death. This has to do with the fact that the album has been mixed by the well-known Swede Fredrik Nordstrom at his Studio Fredman in Gothenburg. Even though I liked the album, there are a few things that, in my humble opinion, may be better next time. For example the lead guitars lack creativity and in most of the songs, with the notable exceptions of the killer leads on Visions Of Hope And Despair and the old-school Black Metal layers of Exhaling The Spirit Of Time, the riffing is the classic 'machine gun' Death Metal style.

Overall, it is a good album with nice production and good compositions from Aggreash. Fans of symphonic black Metal will definitely going to like this album, since it is powerful, coherent and 'polished' as a release. If LYFTHRASYR manage to filter their influences and add complexity to their guitar approach they are going to do much better. LYFTHRASYR has the potential to be one of the bands in the major league. We just have to wait and listen to their third album. As for now...