Svartsyn – Black Testament (2013)

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Out of the tons of Black Metal releases we get each week at Infernal Masquerade, there are just a handful that are worth purchasing, sadly “Black Testament” is not one of them. One-man beast Ornias returns with Svartsyn and this very insipid release that while not bad, it is just too linear and predictable to generate any positive emotion from us.

After a quite interesting and bleak intro track, the band blasts away with “Revelation In The Waters”, a very solid and punishing BM song that sadly is the only highlight of this release. After this track goes by, the rest of the songs feel just too similar. The music is quite decent indeed, but it lacks creativity and direction. We found ourselves getting pretty antsy to reach the end of the album very single time we listened to it (over five times… we counted).

There are some interesting tempo changes here and there, but the riffing comes back to a circular parade of the same and more of the same, over and over. “Eyes Of The Earth” is the perfect example of this. Ornias is a very solid BM guitarist, but we guess on this album he just wanted to make it cohesive by crafting way too similar songs. The production is quite solid, having that old-school Swedish BM rawness that delivers brutality in droves, too bad it was wasted on uninspired songs.

Overall, “Black Testament” is not a bad album, it is just too repetitive for us to enjoy. Svartsyn is a solid band with decent efforts under their belts, but on this one they just dropped the ball and decided to play it safe. If you want your BM to be mind-numbing and very cyclic, then this is something you will love. However, if you are looking for diversity and excitement, you will not find it on this release.

Band: Svartsyn Album: Black Testament

Label: Agonia Records

Release: June 11th, 2013

Oficial Site myspace

Genre: Black Metal

Country: Sweden

Rating: 75/100
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