I noticed Immortal's Sons Of Northern Darkness is a release Sea Of Tranquility has yet to review, and with the band's latest All Shall Fall generating much interest, I thought it would be a good addition. Sons Of Northern Darkness could have been the final Immortal CD, after its release Immortal would cease activity. Exploring other avenues like Abbath with his band I, and their very good Between Two Worlds CD. But after the successful regrouping years later to tour in 2007, we now have new music from Immortal.
If Sons Of Northern Darkness was released today it would still receive stellar reviews. All Shall Fall is a great comeback, but Sons Of Northern Darkness, like the earlier At The Heart Of Winter, is a better album, packed with addictive metal music. While like All Shall Fall, Sons Of Northern Darkness deviates from the norm lacking the constant extremity of some other black metal offerings, though still a dark and complex/brutal combination, but with other influences and ample variety, SOND is a most accessible black metal CD.
Sons Of Northern Darkness ignites with the intense speedster "One By One", this track is just awesome, like the section where Abbath lets out an evil laugh, the intense momentum drops and Immortal play some memorable head banging metal. Once the imposing title track full of more classic metal is concluded the brakes are then applied as they launch into the mammoth "Tyrants". Abbath's wonderful guitar playing and vocals are without doubt the perfect match for Immortal's all powerful music, and creative demolishing drumming is what Horgh excels at, besides his blistering speed. Like on "Within The Dark Mind" where he takes turns duplicating Abbath's slaying riffs, alternating this between his snare and kicks, and also subtle additions like those different spirited patterns he applies on his kick pedals.
Sons Of Northern Darkness is a glorious slice of black metal from Immortal, which should be part of every metal fans collection.
Tracklist:
1. One by one
2. Sons of Northern darkness
3. Tyrants
4. Demonium
5. Within the dark mind
6. In my kingdom cold
7. Antarctica
8. Beyond the Northern waves