Acherontas-Vamachara

Black metal is one of those genres where I’m not easily impressed. Yes, I am a huge fan, but a black metal band has to be really good to get me to support them. And I think that a lot of you can agree with me when I say that out of all of the black metal bands in the world, only a couple dozen bands are truly at kvlt status. Some bands that I consider to be at that status would be Darkthrone, Ravencult, Dark Funeral, and Watain. And I can be especially picky when it comes to the traditional black metal area. Acherontas is a black metal band that has succeeded in impressing me.

The intro track really sets the dark satanic mood for the album, it’s well put together and just at the limit..any longer would be too drawn out. Overall this band is pretty traditional except for the 70s classic rock vibe the music has. It’s interesting because it’s not the actual mood of the music that sounds classic, it’s the feeling it creates in the listener. Because when you listen hard, it just sounds like plain old kvlt black metal, but when you just let the music flow, it sounds like the original Black Sabbath has gone black metal (not particularly Black Sabbath, just a 70s metal band). There’s nothing about any of the individual musicians that really stand out to me as being better than average. Not to mean that as a bad thing, just that it’s not the musicians that make this band unique, it’s the creativity behind the songwriting.

There isn’t too much variation in the songs, but they do a good job of keeping it interesting enough to make the listener want to keep going. It’s weird how every time I listen to this album I go into a black metal phase for the rest of the day, so if you want to get into the black metal mood, this is the album to kick it off with. This album gets 13/20.