If you've got a thing for Black Metal from any of the Scandinavian countries, then you might enjoy the 2019 album "Kaosaura" by the Finnish Black Metal group THE WATCHER.  Not much is known about this band, including when they formed, and "Kaosaura" is the only known record they have released.  THE WATCHER independently unveiled this album on April 16th, 2019.  However, on September 8th of this year, "Kaosaura" will be re-released through the Finnish record label Spread Evil Productions.  For this reason, I will give you my review of the album and what I liked-and did not like-about THE WATCHER's only record to date.

"Kaosaura" opens with an instrumental track simply titled "Introduction." It mainly has drum beating that sets the dark tone and atmosphere which plagues the rest of the album.  The next song "Guru of Hate Yoga" is where we get the Black Metal that we're looking for.  The distorted tremolo picking of guitarists Advorsvs and Profostus are pleasantly mind-scrambling, just like on the following track "Diva of Divinity." As for the vocals of Medithateon, he used growls instead of shrieks, but they were raspy in the style of Black Metal.  On both songs, I also enjoyed Xeth's drumming style, which was full of double bass patterns.  However, I felt that he did not use enough blast beats, which help form the foundation of Black Metal's extreme sound.  Overall, it was easy to get bored with the instruments; they were a little too monotonous and predictable.  Also, the bass notes of Hex IO were mostly drowned out by the guitars, drums, and vocals.

Despite not enjoying the instrumentation as much as I wanted to, I did try to pay attention to the lyrics.  While they were hard to make out for the most part, I could tell that they were very dark and brutal just by the song titles.  Some Black Metal bands are blasphemous and Satanic, while others are not.  THE WATCHER identifies as part of the former with tracks such as "Luciferian Nirvana" and "Pratyeka Satanist." Some people may not be fond of Satanic themes in Black Metal, but without bands such as GORGOROTH, MAYHEM, and EMPEROR-all of whom include Satanism in their music-the genre wouldn't be what it is today.  Therefore, the Satanism in "Kaosaura" should definitely be appreciated.  I do want to end with the note that the production was very good, but there may have been instances-especially in the early part of the record-where the audio quality sounded a little muffled.  Also, the instruments of the other band members drowned out Medithateon's vocals, which is also where the production falls short.

In conclusion, those are the areas where THE WATCHER's sole record "Kaosaura" soars and falls short.  It's definitely not perfect, but there are things to appreciate about it.  With Spread Evil Productions poised to re-release the album on September 8th, we may get better production quality at the very least.  If you're open to trying an album that you have never listened to before, maybe this will meet your expectations.  Or maybe it won't.