VÅNDA is a Swedish black metal band that started in 2017 and Covenant of Death is the groups first full album release. The band's name means agony in Swedish and in 2018, they released a demo title The Devouring Darkness before teaming up with Majestic Mountain Records for this album. The record label also resides in Sweden, with most of their bands coming from Europe with the exception to a few groups from the United States. The band put out their first single in February of last year and that track is the opening song "Light the Torch"

The song starts off with mid tempo and melodic guitars before being accompanied by an audible dark growl of the vocals. The drums are a one two punch of bass drum and snare through the main riff but open up and become more involved as the track carries on. A good opening track to the album. "Violence and Mayhem" embodies the title with a more explosive tempo. The guitars are catchy as they maintain a melody with some thrash aggression. "Omnis Hypocrita" is a solid track that is dominated by the duo of guitars that are completely in sync with each other. The momentum that all the instruments and vocals bring are being fed off the creative and well structured guitar work.

Black metal fans that enjoy the slower and ominous bands will find this release a revamped version of black metal. A cross between Swedish melodic death metal and true Scandinavian black metal. The track "World Reborn" is a great example to that, with ominous undertones colliding with fast paced melody. The song does have solid on point drumming and midway through,  a guitar solo that carries on after some melodic picking. "Non Serviam" is Latin for refusing to serve and opens with a catchy and heavy guitar riff with some sinister, yet empowering vocals. The bass is deep and has more of an effect on the track than on others on the album. A combination of piano and guitar is the instrumental second last track before "Goddess of Death" wraps up the album with heavy melody and sonic guitars.

A mix of dark melody and a driven rhythm sums up the release. The vocals work perfectly to the music and have more integrity to them than just a deep inaudible howl that is associated with a lot of black metal. This is more of an aggressive style of black metal but contains all the characteristics that defines the music. The album as a whole is well done, everything from the songs to the production of them. Can be enjoyed by any metal head, not only fans of black metal.