To create something new in Black Metal is becoming a very difficult thing to be done. I state the idea in this way due a proof: many bands are coming with very good works, some of them opening new ways into the style without caring about complains from fans. And I must be honest: the bands that do this are right.

Yes, they are right, because you must go on, following your own ideas and ideals. You can't be a new BATHORY, MAYHEM, EMPEROR, BURZUM, ROTTING CHRIST or any other of the pioneers of the style, for they already exist. You must be yourself always. And it seems that the German quartet WEIRD FATE understand my words, because their second album, "Cycle of Naught" is a clear example of what I always mean.

Using a musical approach that reminds us from something that ABIGOR did some years ago, but without cloning the Austrian band, WEIRD FATE uses some guitar riffs that seems to inherit aspects from Thrash Metal in some fast moments, but as well they use slower and morbid tempos sometimes. And another very good point of their work: they sound like a whole band, without having that moments of technical exhibition that some bands love. No, they play as a unity and with personality always. And result is very good: a harsh form of Black Metal, but without being too aggressive or too musically worked.

One of the features that make their work nearer from SWOBM albums is the sound quality; yes, it is a harsh one and has that same rusty feeling, but their songs are all understandable, with all instruments being heard and all. But of course the weight is presented in a very good dose. It sounds a bit like an album from those first years of the 90s, when Black Metal arose once more on underground scene worldwide.

Their six songs are very long (only one of them is under 6 minutes of duration), but it's not a problem due their rhythmic changes and very good tempos. But we can hear that the brutal and aggressive "The Worthlessness of Striving" (a song in the way MAYHEM would do, in a perfect equilibrium of speed and weight, along with a great amount of weight, and very good guitars riffs that presents that Thrash Metal elements I told above), the slow torment called "Irretrievable" (with funeral tempos and very good work from vocals and drums), the wonderful "Foreboding" (that starts tender with clean chords, then becomes something more atmospheric, with a great work done from rhythmic session), and the well worked "Cycle of Naught".

A good album, and a very good band, that can show a better work, besides is very good here.