In the beginning of the Second Wave of Black Metal (the first three years of the 90's, to be exact), it was usual to see bands making references for the genre as 'our form of art'. The conception has a very good point: if one face the genre (even today) as a form of art, the mind will be able to open to a broader set of features that aren't easy to be assimilated when one has in mind old conceptions. In other words: to accept the new, you must evade having early plastered conceptions. And maybe it's a good approach to be used when dealing with "Arrival of the Plague Bearer", the second album from the duet ORDER OF NOSFERAT.

The band works a traditional form of Black Metal from the Second Wave, but not as plastered as Old School Black Metal acts, because the use of fine melodies presented by the duet is very good and adorns their morbid and nasty musical work in a great way. It's a personal approach on the old for the old genre, with a blended vision shaped under German and Finnish insights (Count Revenant is from Germany, and Anzillu is from Finland, so both visions are mixed in their work). It's really different from the usual, so let yourself get drowned in their music. You won't regret the experience! The production tries to align the old form of Black Metal (that one guided by a crude and organic insight) with some definition (for the sake of the listener understanding). And it works in a good way, similar to some albums released between 1994 and 1996, but it could be better in the definition of the instrumental tunes.

The harder part to accept and understand what "Arrival of the Black Plague Bearer" is the way the band works: 5 of the 10 songs of the album are instrumental. For those used to old forms, it'll take some time to assimilate it. But what "Arrival of the Plague Bearer" (a classic fast Black Metal song focused on a storm of very good guitar riffs and nasty shrieks with very good introspective melodies), "Followed Path of the Carpathian Blood Wolves" (a catchy set of tempos can be heard on this one, along with nasty melancholic parts), "Fear the Unchained Ghoul" (another set of very good crude and catchy melodies can be found on this one), "Beyond Pitch Black Woodlands" (another powerful melancholic piece, adorned with very good shrieked vocals) and "A Trail of Living Coffins" (a violent Black Metal cold storm, with a set of arrangements by drums and bass guitar that are simple, but effective and good) stand for is really great. And the idea behind "Sleepless in Sorrow and Bloodthirst", "The Castle of Haunting Silence", "Lost in the Crypts of my Need for Affection", "As She Fades in Lamenting Winds" and "Dance of the Wallachian Winter Spirits" (the instrumental songs, filled with many keyboard and pianos parts) is to create a set of beautiful contrasts to enrich their musical work.

As final words, it must be said that ORDER OF NOSFERAT really has potential to become a driving force in Black Metal. So they just must align the musical ideas shown on what "Arrival of the Plague Bearer" with a better sonority. They can do it, for sure!