Den Saakaldte - All Hail Pessimism (2009)

As they mention in their myspace page, this is sick music for sick individuals, and I can’t agree more. This is something that every true black metal fan should listen and have in their regular playlists.

This band has truly captured the old feeling of black metal and has managed to improve on it by their use of synthesizers along some their songs, reminding me of Alghazanth’s The polarity axiom and Osiris - Typhon Unmasked.

The vocals are more than stellar giving the old chill in the spine feeling courtesy of Niklas Kvarforth from Bethlehem. All the musicians in this band’s ranks have an impressive resume of playing with some of the most influential bands in the underground scene, and you can clearly see this with the quality of this album.

The production itself is nothing but stellar, and all the instruments sound perfectly with each other creating a feeling that was lost for years in many uninspired black metal releases from some of the pioneer bands of the genre. If Den Saakaldte can keep their awesome work they will soon be regarded as one of the top black metal bands of current times that still maintains the essence of traditional ‘true’ black metal and is able to improve on it.

Country: Norway