Till Death Do Us Part

In other reviews, I wrote about the idea of solos in black metal - when a band starts soloing on guitar like its suddenly become Journey, it gets bloody annoying. And while Glamdring don't necessarily succumb to this, there is so much lead guitar on this album that it's ridiculous.

The music itself is fine I suppose, but it really lacks the feel of black metal - there's no coldness, no atmosphere, nothing - just typical black metal rasps and that bloody lead guitar going off in the background. It just doesn't work - the clumsily-picked notes absolutely kill any effect the band might be going for.

Drums are alright, and vocals are decent enough, but when the music tends to sound more like a garage band who've just picked up their instruments "for real" for the first time, then you can count me out. Black metal absolutely needs to have the feel that is so incredible to its sound as a genre, and Glamdring is lacking in it. The songs themselves, as I said, are not bad in and of themselves, if they would ditch the irritating lead guitar (for an example of their better work, check out the track "Nocturnal Offering" - if they go in this direction, they'll do fine), they would be an alright unblack act. Until then, I'll pass on this one.